This dramatic double-page cartoon appeared just after delegates to the Republican National Convention selected former senator James Blaine as their standard-bearer. Cartoonist Thomas Nast was among those Republicans who reacted to the nomination by abandoning their party during the campaign. (Those who bolted in 1884 were derisively called "Mugwumps," supposedly from an Algonquin word for chief.) Nast explains their decision in this cartoon, set in ancient Rome.
