Ruthless political amphibian

Printed in March 1812, this political cartoon was made in reaction to the newly drawn state senate election district of South Essex created by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the Democratic-Republican Party. The caricature satirizes the bizarre shape of the district as a dragon-like "monster," and Federalist newspaper editors and others at the time likened it to a salamander.

The term gerrymander is named after Elbridge Gerry, the Massachusetts governor (and later U.S. vice president) who in 1811 signed a bill creating the district above. Gerrymandering is almost always considered a corruption of the democratic process.

“Even in {President 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.

— Jeffrey Toobin (born 1960), American lawyer and journalist, including as a CNN legal analyst.

The first 'gerrymander'

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