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In this and other cartoons, Thomas Nast uses the
Memphis and New Orleans riots as symbols of the
sustained and egregious violence against blacks
committed by Southern whites. The scene of the
slavery auction and the lashing underlines the
continuity between the pre-war and post-war South.
The artist intends to generate opposition to
President Andrew Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction
plan and, by implication, to build support for the
Radical Reconstruction objectives of Congressional
Republicans.
Nast applies a Shakespeare motif, as he often
did, to cast Johnson as the evil Iago plotting
against the heroic and innocent Otello, the Moor
(African). Once again, Nast portrays the central
black character as a wounded Union veteran who is
being denied his just and earned place in the
American polity. The artist reminds viewers of the
president’s past promises, vetoes of
Reconstruction legislation, and pardons of former
Confederates.
In the bottom-center picture,
Johnson-the-snake-charmer is joined by his top
cabinet officials (l-r), Secretary of State William
Henry Seward, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles,
and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. (Johnson’s
later attempt to oust Stanton for working behind the
scenes with Congressional Radicals would lead to the
president’s impeachment.) The bottom side-panels
contrast the situation in New Orleans during the
Civil War and during the Johnson administration. On
the left (1862), a humbled Confederate soldier must
bow to Union General Benjamin Butler; on the right
(1866), General Philip Sheridan is forced to submit
to the same former Rebel.
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