This Thomas Nast cartoon appeared during the
presidential election campaign of 1868. The
contest pitted Nast’s hero, General Ulysses S.
Grant, the Republican candidate, against former
New York Governor Horatio Seymour, the Democratic
nominee. This cartoon presents one of Nast’s
continual themes: that the Democratic party
suppresses the rights and threatens the safety of
black Americans. The caption lets the viewer know
that he is specifically criticizing the Democratic
party’s opposition to Reconstruction
legislation. The three standing figures represent
what the cartoonist considers to be the three
wings of the Democratic party. Nast incorporates
into the picture several symbols and stereotypes
that he uses frequently.
The figure on the left is an Irish-American
man. He wears working-class clothing, has an
alcohol bottle in his hip pocket, a pipe and a
cross in this hat, and holds a club in a striking
position. "5 Points" refers to a
neighborhood in New York City, populated at the
time primarily by poor Irish immigrants. The man’s
features are ape-like, a common way the Irish were
portrayed in nineteenth-century illustrations.
In the background Nast adds the burning Colored
Orphan Asylum and a lynched figure to remind
viewers of the Irish-American and Democratic
involvement in the Civil War draft riots in New
York City. As New York governor, Seymour had
vigorously opposed the draft and notoriously
addressed the rioters as "My friends."
In sum, the Irish-American is depicted as a
brutish, pugnacious, heavy-drinking, lower-class
Catholic; a foreign element in the American
electorate. Nast, an immigrant himself, usually
celebrated America as a land of immigrants from
many (including non-European) nations.
Irish-Catholics were his one consistent exception.
The middle figure is Nathan Bedford Forrest,
who represents the influence of former
Confederates in the post-war Democratic party. He
wears his Confederate uniform, with a lash—symbolizing
slavery—in his back pocket, and stands ready to
plunge a knife—symbolizing the Confederate war
effort, "The Lost Cause"—into his
black victim. On Forrest’s coat is a medal
honoring his command at Fort Pillow—symbolizing
Confederate atrocities against black soldiers. In
the background, Nast includes a burning freedmen’s
school, representing the violence resistance of
many white Southerners to the freedom and
advancement of blacks in society. Forrest was one
of the organizers of the Ku Klux Klan.
The figure on the right is August Belmont, a
Jewish financier who served as the national chair
of the Democratic party. His apparel is
upper-class, and the "5th
Avenue" medallion on his coat lapel refers to
the wealthiest neighborhood in New York City where
he lived. Republicans often charged Democrats with
various types of vote fraud, so Nast pictures
Belmont holding aloft a packet of money designated
for buying votes. One could infer that by contrast
with the symbolic figures of Belmont and the
Irish-American, that the Republican party is, in
Nast’s estimation, the party of the honest,
hard-working middle class.
Underneath the three Democratic figures is a
black Union veteran, holding an American flag and
reaching for a ballot box. Again, Nast felt
obliged to emphasize the fact that black men had earned
the right to vote through their participation in
the Union war effort. In having the Democrats
trample the American flag, as well as the black
man, the artist implies that they are attacking
basic American principles and the entire nation,
not merely one minority.
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