This double-page cartoon by Matt Morgan shows the nation menaced by a “dark
horde” of Republican villains. On the high ground, Columbia holds the tatters
of an American flag as she indicates to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln,
Benjamin Franklin, William Penn, and other departed icons of American history
the malevolent force advancing toward them from the low ground. In the caption, she emphatically pleads: “Shall these things be! Is not this state of things enough to cause the Fathers of the Republic to rise from their graves to protest against the iniquity and folly of the hour?” This cartoon probably influenced Morgan’s rival, Thomas Nast, to create "Clasping Hands Over the Bloodless (Sar)C(h)asm" for Harper’s Weekly.