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Democratic National Convention |
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“The Death-Bed Marriage” |
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Cartoonist: Thomas Nast |
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Source: Harper's Weekly |
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Date:
July 27, 1872, p. 584
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Click to return to previous version of this
cartoon |
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Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
"The Death-Bed Marriage" of Greeley's
Liberal-Republicanism to "The Daughter of Democracy" took place at
Baltimore on July 10, 1872, and was duly celebrated in this grim caricature.
Long-time Republican Horace Greeley kneels to take, for better or worse, the
moribund hand of the Democratic party which has nominated him as its
presidential candidate. The sarcastic use of the N-word in the subtitle refers
to a 1868 Nast cartoon, "Would You Marry Your Daughter to a Nigger?," which wondered if the anti-black Democratic party might nominate
civil rights veteran, Salmon Chase. (They did not.) Here, the term refers to
Greeley, the former abolitionist, and underscores the abandonment of his
principles.
In the left-foreground the Democratic/woman's dowry of "Fraudulent
Votes," "Stuffed Ballot Boxes," and "Tammany Ring Money
Stolen From the People" is stacked in crates and boxes. Complementing the
unhappy couple, an equally mismatched and grotesque wedding party of grieving
Tammanyites, Democrats, and embittered Liberal Republicans are gathered to
endure the moment. Behind Greeley on the right, Whitelaw Reid is holding the
former editor's trademark white hat and coat; the pocket of the latter contains
a publication, "The Recollections of a Busy-Body, By H.G."
The long-haired figure on the far-right is Theodore Tilton, editor, evangelist,
and lecturer. In his jacket pocket is a book, Life of Mrs. Woodhull, a biography
Tilton had written about Victoria Claflin Woodhull. She was an outspoken
advocate of women's rights and free-love, who in 1872 became the first woman
nominated for president (running on the Equal Rights ticket). Shortly before the
election, she revealed evidence of an affair between Tilton's wife and the Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher, perhaps the most popular and well-known evangelist in the
country. The scandalous revelations led to one of the nation's most
widely-reported and sensational trials. |
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