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1860 was the year in which the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, won the White House. However great we may now think he was, though, he didn’t have universal support among the voters. Nor, for that matter, among editorial cartoonists. Take a look, for instance, at the 1860 political cartoon shown above.
The captions, from left to right:
“Hold on to me, Abe, and we’ll go in here by unanimous consent of the people.”
Lincoln: “Now, my friends, I’m almost in, and the millennium is going to begin, so ask what you will and it shall be granted.”
“Oh! what a beautiful man he is. I feel a ‘passional attraction’ every time I see his lovely face.”
“I represent the free love element, and expect to have free license to carry out its principles.”
“I want religion abolished, and the book of Mormon made the standard of morality.”
“‘De white man hab no rights dat cullud pussons am bound to spect.’ I want dat understood.”
“I want womans rights enforced, and man reduced in subjection to her authority.”
“I want everybody to have a share of everybody else’s property.”
“I want a hotel established by government, where people that ain’t inclined to work, can board free of expense, and be found in rum and tobacco.”
“I want guaranteed to every Citizen the right to examine every other citizen’s pockets without interruption by Policemen.”
“I want all the stations houses burned up and the M.P.’s killed, so that all the boheys can run with the machine and have a muss when they please.”
(That last one is more than a bit obscure to me.)
One of the funny things to me about the cartoon above is that, on just about every issue to which it alludes — feminism, for example, and utopian socialism, and sexual license, and racial politics — the Democrats are now criticized in terms not altogether unlike this cartoon’s criticism of the Republicans.
Curious, no?
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