In a historical twist of fate, Senator Hiram Revels took
the Senate seat formerly held by Jefferson Davis, who had
served as president of the Confederate States of America. In
this cartoon by Thomas Nast, Revels is welcomed to the Senate
chamber by fellow-Republican senators (l-r), Henry Wilson of
Massachusetts, Oliver Morton of Indiana, Carl Schurz of
Missouri, and Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Nast often
tapped the plays of Shakespeare, which were well known to
nineteenth-century Americans, as sources of inspiration and
symbolism. In this illustration, the artist portrays Davis as
the evil Iago, who schemed against the innocent Othello, the
Moor (African). |