his cover-cartoon by Thomas Nast (published November 10) celebrates the
Republican victory in the presidential election. The Republican Elephant
(popularized by Nast) stomps on the "Rebel" cause of the Democratic
party with its front legs, as it kicks up its back legs, knocking over
Democratic party chairman William Barnum and Tammany Hall boss John Kelly
(dressed as an Indian chief).
The cartoon's message that the election spelled the triumph of Republican
nationalism over Democratic states' rights is illuminated in the rays of light
emanating from beyond the mountains. Yet, with each candidate winning the
electoral votes of 19 states, and the South solidly Democratic, national unity
was perhaps more ethereal than Nast's sunshine. New Jersey's electoral votes
were cast for the Democratic party, prompting cartoonist Nast, who lived with
his family in Morristown, New Jersey, to disavow his residency (under his
signature) and to disjoin the state symbolically from the rest of the Republican
elephant.
Sent plummeting over the cliff by the bucking pachyderm are various emblems of
the Democratic party: the severed body of the Democratic Tiger; the vitriolic
address of Senator Wade Hampton of South Carolina; the pistols of the urban
"shoulder-hitter"; the rifle of the Confederate veteran; the whisky
bottle of Southern "Bourbons"; vice-presidential nominee William
English, with his mortgages and foreclosures; along with the inflation Rag Baby
of Greenback candidate James Weaver. Since the artist was dubious about the
character of president-elect James Garfield, as well as an admirer of his
Democratic rival, Winfield Hancock, Garfield is not mentioned by name in this
cartoon.
Warning
1860
