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 Superb Hancock and Awful Democrats

 


 “Positively Last Awakening of the Democratic Rip Van Winkle”
  Cartoonist:  Joseph Keppler
  Source:  Cartoons From "Puck"
  Date:   October 27, 1880, p. 39

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Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
The Democratic party personified as Rip Van Winkle awakens to find the ghosts of the past Democratic presidential nominees and their current standard-bearer, Winfield Hanacock (with arms raised) floating by him. The Democrats had not won a presidential election since James Buchanan's victory in 1856, and this cartoon predicts that 1880 will not reverse that trend. The spectral Democratic nominees are (left to right): Samuel Tilden (1876), Winfield Hancock (1880), Horatio Seymour (1868), George McClellan (1864), Horace Greeley (1872), and Stephen Douglas (1860). Laying beside the Democratic Rip Van Winkle are his states-rights musket and his flask of bourbon whiskey (representing Southern Democrats); above him in the tree perch two owls, Benjamin Butler (left) and John Kelly (right), furtive birds of prey.
 

 

 

 
 

 

     
 

 

 
     
 

 

 
     
 

 

 

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