Description

Racist cartoon depicting the 1868 Presidential Election as a carriage race between the "patriotic" Democrats and the "bum" Republicans who support Reconstruction. Depicts the elegant Democratic carriage with the banner "This is a White Man's Government" pulled by the horses Horatio Seymour and Francis P. Blair racing passed the stalled Republican wagon steered by the asses, nominees Ulysses Grant and Schuyler Colfax. Liberty holding the Constitution rides in the Democrats' carriage while the Republican wagon passengers include radical Thaddeus Stevens, the grim reaper, and an African American couple. Massachusetts Republican representative Benjamin F. Butler tries to push the stalled wagon passed the bones of those who paid "The Price of Nigger Freedom" and the rocks of "Ruined Commerce," "Debt," and "Negro Supremacy." In the background, a cheering crowd brandishing American flags near the U.S. Capitol await the winning Seymour and Blair while on the building's other side a group of African American youth frolic. In the foreground Henry Ward Beecher and Horace Greeley play a shellgame looking for Grant, an African American couple discuss returning to their former master, and an African American man sells tickets to "Salt River" (i.e., political disaster) to a line of scalawags.

Record Contributed By

The Library Company of Philadelphia

Record Harvested From

PA Digital