Time Works Wonders

 
April 9, 1870, page 232

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IAGO (Jeff Davis)

"For that I do suspect the lusty moor
hath leap'd into my seat:  the thought whereof
doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards." -- Othello
 
Note:
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).
 

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