Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Caricatures and cartoons
[Illustration: 028]
|Plate Number Twenty-eight--This cartoon, "Long Abraham Lincoln a Little
Longer," published in _Harper's Weekly_, on November 26, 1864, tells its
own story and bears witness to the joyful relief with which the people
of the North greeted the re-election of Lincoln. Very like the foregoing
in spirit and treatment (and for that reason not reproduced in this
place) is a cartoon published in _Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper_
on December 3, 1864. It bears title, "Jeff Davis' November Nightmare,"
and places the President, with legs drawn up, on the bed of the
Confederate leader. "Is that you still there, Long Abe?" asks the
suddenly awakened man. "Yes, and I am going to be four years longer," is
the reply.
[Illustration: 029]
|Plate Number Twenty-nine--This cartoon, "The Federal Phoenix," was
published in _Punch_, on December 3, 1864. Its character is explained in
its title, and it shows one of those fabled birds, on which the artist
has placed the head of Lincoln, rising from a pyre, the fuel for which
is furnished by commerce, credit, the Constitution, a free press, habeas
corpus and State rights. How it impressed the public for whom it was
intended can only be conjectured, but to the eyes of an American,
a generation after the death of the man whom it thus held up to
condemnation, it seems as brutal in motive as it is misleading in fact.
[Illustration: 030]
|Plate Number Thirty--This-cartoon, "The Threatening Notice," published
in _Punch_, on February 26, 1865, represents Lincoln remonstrating with
the American eagle in the dress of Uncle Sam over the Senate's proposed
abrogation of Canadian treaties. "Now, Uncle Sam," the President is
reported as saying, "you're in a darned hurry to serve this notice on
John Bull. Now, it's my duty as your attorney, to tell you that you may
drive him to go over to that cuss, Davis." But John Bull was not to be
driven "over to that cuss, Davis." Two months later the war was ended,
and Lincoln dead. _Punch_ has caricatured him for the last time.
[Illustration: 031]
|Plate Number Thirty-one--This cartoon, "From Our Special War
Correspondent," was published in _Harper's Weekly_, on April 15,
1865. Lincoln, who had lately made his last visit to the front, was
represented, with a drumhead for a table, writing from City Point,
Virginia: "All seems well with us." These words, in the light of after
events, are not without a touch of pathos. When the journal in which
they appeared reached its readers, Booth's bullet had done its work and
Lincoln had become the gentlest memory in our history.
[Illustration: 031]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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