Inspired by the gritty working-class subjects of seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting, David Gilmour Blythe satirized the political and social corruption that characterized American urban life. In Justice, a policeman leads a group of suspects into a courtroom. The role of the presiding judge is symbolized by the scales of justice, clutched in the beak of a patriotic American eagle.

The Blood Tubs (mentioned on the poster attached to the judge’s bench) were members of a Baltimore street gang that dunked political opponents in slaughterhouse barrels of blood. The Blood Tubs supported the American Party, which promoted anti-foreign and anti-Catholic prejudice and sought to restrict immigration to the United States. “SAM,” an abbreviation for “Uncle Sam,” was a nickname for the party, popularly called the “Know-Nothing Party.” Blythe was a sympathizer, and his caricatures of the working poor may reflect the party’s anti-immigration views.