The caption lets the viewer know that the artist is specifically criticizing the Democratic party's opposition to Reconstruction legislation. The three standing figures represent what Nast considers to be the three wings of the Democratic party. The cartoonist incorporates into the picture several symbols and stereotypes that he uses frequently.

The figure on the left is a Catholic-Irish-American man. He wears working-class clothing, has an alcohol bottle in his hip pocket, a pipe and a cross in his hat, and holds a club in a striking position. The name on his hat-band-"5 Points"-refers to a neighborhood in New York City, populated at the time by poor Irish immigrants. The man's features are ape-like, a common way the Irish were portrayed in 19th-century illustrations.

In the background Nast adds the burning Colored Orphan Asylum and a lynched figure to remind viewers of the Irish-American and Democratic involvement in the Civil War draft riots in New York City. As New York governor, Seymour had vigorously opposed the draft and notoriously addressed the rioters as "My friends."

In sum, the Irish-American is depicted as a brutish, pugnacious, heavy-drinking, lower-class Catholic; a foreign element in the American electorate. Nast, an immigrant himself, usually celebrated America as a land of immigrants from many (including non-European) nations. Irish-Catholics were his one consistent exception.

The middle figure is Nathan Bedford Forrest, who represents the influence of former Confederates in the post-war Democratic party. He wears his Confederate uniform, with a lash-symbolizing slavery-in his back pocket, and stands ready to plunge a knife-signifying the Confederate war effort, "The Lost Cause"-into his black victim. On Forrest's coat is a medal honoring his command at Fort Pillow, the epitome of Confederate atrocities against black soldiers.

In the background, pictorially balancing the inflamed orphanage, Nast includes a burning freedmen's school, representing the violent resistance of many white Southerners to the freedom and advancement of blacks in society. Forrest was one of the organizers of the Ku Klux Klan.

The figure on the right is August Belmont, a financier who was the national chairman of the Democratic party. His apparel is upper-class, and the "5th Avenue" medallion on his coat refers to the wealthiest neighborhood in New York City where he lived (a numerical and cultural counterweight to "5 Points").

Republicans often charged Democrats with various types of vote fraud, so Nast draws Belmont holding aloft a packet of money designated for buying votes. One could infer that by contrast with the representative figures of Belmont and the Irish-American, that the Republican party is, in Nast's estimation, the party of the honest, hard-working, middle class.