New England Diary

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The first 'gerrymander'

RWhitcomb-editor

This March 1812 political cartoon was drawn in reaction to the newly drawn state senate district of South Essex, in Essex County, Mass., created by the state legislature to favor the Democratic-Republican Party candidates of Gov. Elbridge Gerry over the Federalists. Federalist newspaper editors and others at the time likened the district shape to a salamander, and the word gerrymander was a portmanteau of that word and Governor Gerry's last name.

‘‘Even in {James} Madison's day, the practice of gerrymandering for partisan advantage was familiar. In the late seventeen-eighties, there were claims that Patrick Henry had tried to gerrymander Madison himself out of the First Congress. The term was coined during Madison's Presidency, to mock Elbridge Gerry, the governor of Massachusetts, who in 1811 approved an election district that was said to look like a salamander.’’


-- Jeffrey Toobin, lawyer and journalist