The World, also, the
chief organ of the Chicago "Conservatism" of last year, now takes the President
under its special patronage. The Chicago gentlemen, it informs him, are the only friends
he can safely trust. What said this faithful friend of the President eight months ago on
the 7th of March 1865? Only this:
"God bless and spare Abraham Lincoln! Should this
Andrew Johnson become his successor, the decline and fall of the American Republic would
smell as rank in history as that of the Roman empire under such atrocious monsters in
human shape as Nero and Caligula."
Of course the President will desert his
old friends of the war for these honest and fair-spoken gentlemen, especially after the
result of the elections in all the States that have voted. The new performance of the old
Chicago company, we trust, serves to amuse the Chief Magistrate and lighten the cares of
office. Kings formerly had their jesters. Why should not the President have his merry men?
|
1864 Democracy 1865 |
November 11, 1865,
page 713 (Cartoon) |
|
HarpWeek Commentary: This Thomas Nast cartoon shows Manton Marble, editor of the
anti-Lincoln Peace Democrat (Copperhead) New York World, and John Van Buren (son of
the eighth president) vilifying Johnson in 1864 and cozying up to him a year later.
Fernando Wood, Copperhead Mayor of New York and Democratic Congressman, is between Johnson
and Van Buren on the right, with Marble kneeling. (The other man in both pictures looks
like George William Curtis, editor of Harpers Weekly but cannot be positively
identified. Curtis clashed with Nast on occasion but probably not as early as this;
moreover, Curtis did support Johnsons nomination in 1864). |
|
|
|
Text from
"Democracy," Thomas Nast Illustration:
Upper Left Hand Corner:
"The drunken and
beastly CALIGULA, the most
profligate of all the Roman emperors, raised his horse to the dignity of consulan
office that, in former times, had been filled by the greatest warriors and statesmen of
the republic, the SCIPIOS, the CATOS, by CICERO, and by the mighty JULIUS himself. The
consulship was scarcely more disgraced by that scandalous transaction than is our
vice-presidency by the late election. This office has been adorned in better days by the
talents and accomplishments of ADAMS and JEFFERSON,
CLINTON and GERRY, CALHOUN and VAN BUREN;
and now to see it filled by this insolent, drunken brute, in comparison with whom even CALIGULAS horse was
respectable!for the poor animal did not abuse his own nature." New
York World.
Bottom Left Hand
Corner:
1864.
"ANDREW JOHNSON is
Military Governor of Tennessee, and this test oath is proposed by him, and substantially
excludes every man opposed to the Administration from taking a vote.***Talk to me of a
Democrat sustaining all these usurpations, these violations of the Constitution and of the
elementary principles of civil liberty! I submit that no man who has democratic heart in
his bosom and a democratic intellect in his head could fail to seize this occasion to
drive from power the Administration that has been signalized by acts like these."
JOHN VAN BUREN
Upper Right Hand Corner:
1865.
"Such did the Democratic masses find
to be the record of ANDREW JOHNSON. They found as Civil Governor of Tennessee, member of
Congress, or federal Senator, not one word or act of his which a national Democrat would
not defend, and, as Military Governor of Tennessee, they appreciated the exigency in which
he was placed. This cheered and delighted them."New York World.
Lower Right Hand Corner:
1865.
"I look upon him [ANDREW JOHNSON]
as a patriot and as a statesman who for twenty-five years has been distinguished in the
service of his country in the various offices that he has filled, from the Legislature to
Governor of the State, in both Houses of Congress, as Vice-President and President of the
United States. I look upon him as patriotic, wise, and prudent."
JOHN VAN BUREN
Articles related to Johnson's Early Presidency:
President
Johnsons Amnesty Proclamation
June 10, 1865, page 355
Pardon-Seekers at the
White House
October 14, 1865, page 641
General Logan upon
Reorganization
September 20, 1865, page 611
The Presidents
Experiment
September 30, 1865, page 610
Moses and John Tyler
October 7, 1865, page 627
The Presidents
Fidelity
December 9, 1865, page 771
The Presidents
"Friends"
November 4, 1865, page 691