1864 political cartoon speaks to heated climate in Lincoln’s re-election bid

Scott Sonner

Thursday, Aug. 3, 2000 | 9:15 a.m.

PHILADELPHIA - An 1864 political cartoon on display at a special exhibition tied to the Republican National Convention speaks to the heated political climate surrounding President Lincoln's bid for re-election at the close of the Civil War.

Lincoln found himself in the middle of Democrat Gen. George McClellan on the left and Radical Republican challenger John C. Fremont on the right with his plans for Reconstruction of the South.

Fremont and McClellan both had been Union generals in the Civil War, and both had been dismissed by Lincoln.

"It was very heated," said Guy Rocha, Nevada's state archivist.

McClellan advocated accepting the South back into the Union immediately with no transitional period, Rocha said.

"Lincoln said they were going to have to pay some dues, but he didn't want to be too harsh," he said.

"But the Radical Republicans wanted to punish the South. The wanted to have war crimes and execute Confederate leaders," he said.

The mood was captured in a pro-Lincoln cartoon sketch published by Currier and Ives of New York City in 1864 and put on display by American Political Items Collectors at the Politicalfest in the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

The legal-sized paper was divided in half, with McClellan offering an olive branch to a Confederate soldier, who was holding a knife on a black Union soldier on his knees.

On the other panel, Lincoln had a bayonet at the throat of a Confederate soldier on the ground, with the black Union soldier in the background standing tall.

McClellan states, "The party that I represent begs you to accept the olive branch, take back your (slave)."

The slave says, "Why general!! I am a Union soldier! I have shed my blood in defiance of liberty and law and you will give me back again to slavery?"

The Confederate says, "I am glad to hear that you are willing to be governed once more by your Southern masters."

On the other panel, the Confederate states, "I surrender unconditionally and own up that the rebellion is a failure, I beg of you to let me come back into the Union and not to punish me too severely for my madness and folly."

Lincoln assures him there is "no desire for revenge.

"Your unconditional submission to the government and laws is all that I demand," the president states.

But the government "will never allow you to again enslave those who have been made free by your rebellion."