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= Salt River (politics) = The phrase ‘to go up Salt River’ or ‘to be rowed up Salt River’ is a political slogan or catchphrase originating from the Antebellum South era of the United States, with its earliest references from 1827 onwards. It was often used in political cartoons and speeches as a metaphor to symbolize political defeat, or even specifically synonymous to ‘losing an election.’ It was later popularised in political expression by Ohio Representative Alexander Duncan when using it in a speech in the House of Representatives in 1839.

Geographically, the Salt River is a 150 mile long river running through the state of Kentucky, running from near Parksville and empties out into the Ohio River near West Point.

There is debate as to when the catchphrase became politicised in its use as in Richard H. Thornton’s An American Glossary, it gives the definition as ‘To row a man up Salt River is to beat him or make him otherwise uncomfortable. The phrase is much used with reference to a defeated party in politics.’

Origin
Most sources take the origin of the phrase to be from an anecdote referenced in the Dictionary of American History. The anecdote goes that in 1832, during Whig candidate Henry Clay’s election campaign against democrat Andrew Jackson, Clay hired a democratic Jackson-supporting boat man to row him up the Ohio River from Ohio to Louisville where he was scheduled to give an engagement speech. It follows that the boatman jeopardised Clay’s plans, and mistakenly rowed Clay up Salt River instead, causing him to miss his speech that would have otherwise won him valuable votes. This incident is referenced to have caused him to lose the election, and hence Salt River became synonymous to political defeat.

Debate
However in Sperber and Tidwell’s Words and Phrases in American Politics: Fact and Fiction about Salt River, the question of its true origin is called into question as the authors point out that the Dictionary’s only reference is Carl Scherf’s Slang, Slogan and Song in American Politics, which in turn does not provide any information for original sources, calling into question whether this ‘undocumented’ story can be considered to be factual, as well as considering the fact that there are also no contemporary mentions of the incident.

Instead, the Dictionary of Americanisms and An American Glossary reference a different incident to be the origin of the phrase Salt River, recounted in a newspaper article by English novelist Frances M. Trollope, who resided in America from 1824 to 1831. In the article, published in 1832, she recounts the story of an argument between the Duke of Saxe-Weimar and his coachman where the Duke threatened to beat the man with a bamboo stick, with the quote from the newspaper article referencing the incident taken to be, ‘one of those threats which in Georgia dialect would subject a man to “a rowing up salt river”.’ If this incident is taken to be the origin of the phrase, it shows that it did not originate from a political context, but merely a threat to be beaten up. Moreover, while the exact date of this source is uncertain, it is deduced that with Trollope’s arrival in the United States in 1827, and with the assumption that public interest of the Duke’s presence would not have not have lasted a very long time in the country, that the year of the source is closer to 1827 than 1832.

Salt River in political caricature
In the time of the mid nineteenth century, political cartoonists employed visual and textual references of Salt River to sway public opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of political candidates. In Hutter’s “Ho for Salt River!”, she brings up how backdrops of Salt River were used more than to just symbolise political defeat. Salt River was also a metaphor for the massive political barriers candidates faced and the hardships they encountered. In “Fording Salt River,” the White House is seen in the backdrop of the cartoon, while the river cuts towards the centre of the image. Two Whig candidates Henry Clay, Zachary Taylor and supporter Horace Greeley are depicted to be tossed around in the currents of the River while Democrats Martin van Buren rides swiftly on the back of his son John.