1860 and 1864 Presidential Election Cartoons by Currier & Ives
The New York firm of Currier & Ives advertised itself as “Publishers of Cheap and Popular Pictures” and, between its founding in 1857 and its dissolution in 1907, it reigned as the most prolific lithographic firm in the country. The firm’s prints chronicled America, from idealized scenes of daily life to Civil War battle scenes to portraits to sporting events to disasters to historical events. In addition, the firm published political cartoons, including a number for the 1860 and 1864 presidential elections.
Currier & Ives did not take sides in the elections of 1860 and 1864, but instead produced cartoons for all candidates. The cartoons were sold both individually and in bulk for party distribution. The cartoon images were complicated, requiring readers to interpret text and picture in the context of current politics.
The 1860 election was especially complex. It saw four men vying for the presidency—Republican Abraham Lincoln, Southern Democrat John Breckinridge, Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, and Constitutional Unionist John Bell.
This cartoon presents the election as viewed by supporters of the Constitutional Union Party. The party’s candidates, John Bell and Edward Everett, stand on a sturdy “Constitutional Bridge” between North and South watching the other parties’ candidates, whom the title compares to tightrope walker I.F. Blondin, struggle to cross the Salt River of political defeat. Vice president Breckinridge urges President Buchanan to “hurry up!” and carry him across on the rope of “slavery extension” before the rope breaks. Douglas totters precariously on the rope of “non intervention,” thrown off by his poorly weighted “popular sovereignty” balance pole. And Lincoln finds that his rail, supported by Horace Greeley and resting on the “abolition rock,” won’t reach across the river at all.
During the 1860 campaign, Stephen Douglas broke with political protocol and campaigned vigorously on his own behalf. Supporters excused his behavior by claiming he was just giving speeches as he traveled through New York and New England on the way to visit his mother. This cartoon makes fun of that idea and criticizes Douglas for “taking the stump.” In the center, Douglas, wearing a wooden leg, claims, “Gentlemen I’m going to see my mother, and solicit a little help, for in running after a nomination, I fell over a big lump of Breckenridge, and have been very lame ever since.” Bell offers him “a trifle in New York currency,” while Breckinridge rejects Buchanan’s demand that he “stump” too with the reply, “Well old Buck, if you say so, I suppose I must, but I know it will be of no use, for I feel that I haven’t got a leg to stand on.” Abraham Lincoln, leaning against a rail fence, declares confidently, “Go it ye cripples! wooden legs are cheap, but stumping won’t save you.”
This cartoon focuses on the “Prospect of a Smash Up” for the divided Democratic Party. The party’s wagon, labeled “Democratic Platform,” sits stalled across a railroad track while two opposing teams of horses and drivers pull the wagon in opposite directions. On one side, horses with the heads of Douglas and running mate Hershel V. Johnson are driven by an Indian, symbol the powerful New York City Tammany Hall political machine, who yells, “Now then little Dug! put in and pull, while I cry Tammany to the rescue.” On the other side, a team with the heads of Breckinridge and running mate Joseph Lane is driven by President Buchanan shouting, “Come Jack, and Joe, pull up! and don’t let the other team stir the wagon I’d rather the Machine would be smashed than have them run away with it.” Lincoln and his running mate, Hannibal Hamlin, hurtle down the track toward the Democrats’ wagon in a locomotive named “Equal Rights” warning, “Clear the track” and “Look out for the Engine, when the bell rings!”
This post-election cartoon portrays president-elect Abraham Lincoln as the winner of “The National Game.” Standing on “Home Base,” Lincoln gives his defeated opponents some advice: “Gentlemen, if any of you should ever take a hand in another match at this game, remember that you must have ‘a good bat’ and strike a ‘fair ball’ to ‘make a clean score’ & ‘a home run.’” His “good bat” is a wooden rail labeled “Equal Rights and Free Territory.” As a skunk crosses in front of the other candidates, Breckinridge, with a bat labeled “Slavery Extension,” holds his nose and says, “I guess I’d better leave for Kentucky, for I smell something strong around here, and begin to think, that we are completely ‘skunk’d.’” Bell, holding a bat marked “Fusion,” comments, “It appears to me very singular that we three should strike ‘foul’ and be ‘put out’ while old Abe made such a good lick.” Douglas, holding his “Non Intervention” bat, replies, “That’s because he had that confounded rail, to strike with. I thought our fusion would be a ‘short stop’ to his career."
Currier & Ives cartoons during the 1864 election campaign focused primarily on the candidates’ stands regarding the ongoing Civil War. Lincoln stood firmly on the Union (Republican) Party’s platform, which called for continuing the fight until Union victory, reunion with the Confederate states, and abolition of slavery. His Democratic opponent, Gen. George McClellan, ran rather uncomfortably on the party’s peace platform.
“The True Issue or ‘Thats What's the Matter’” portrays McClellan as the man to settle the “matter” of the war, here shown as a tug-of-war between Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis over a “Map of the United States.” The two presidents are portrayed literally tearing the nation apart with their uncompromising war demands. Lincoln pulls the northern half of the map, asserting, “No peace without abolition.” Davis pulls the southern half and declares, “No peace without separation!!” McClellan stands in the center, holding the two men by their lapels, and demands, “The Union must be preserved at all hazards!”
The pro-Lincoln cartoon “Your Plan and Mine” draws a sharp contrast between Lincoln’s and McClellan’s plans for the war effort and its aftermath. It portrays a rather effete McClellan offering an olive branch of peace to the knife-wielding Jefferson Davis and assuring him that if the South returns to the Union it can “do as you please” regarding slavery—in short, the black soldier at Davis’s feet will be reenslaved. Davis replies that he is “glad to hear that you are willing to be governed once more by your Southern masters.” A combative Lincoln, in contrast, demands the South’s unconditional surrender, holding Davis at the point of a bayonet, and tells the defeated Davis that the United States “will never allow you to again enslave those who have been made free by your rebellion.” Davis admits to Lincoln and the black soldier that the rebellion was “a failure” and begs not to be punished for his “madness” and “folly.”
This anti-McClellan cartoon ridicules “Little Mac’s” pairing with Peace Democrat and Copperhead George Pendleton as his running mate and his "peace at any price" presidential campaign. McClellan and Pendleton are connected by “The Party Tie,” created at the Democrats’ national convention, for which McClellan tries to apologize to the two Union soldiers on his left: “It was not I that did it fellow Soldiers!! but with this unfortunate attachment I was politically born at Chicago!” The soldiers remain outraged. One says, “Good bye 'little Mac’ if that’s your company! Uncle Abe gets my vote,” and the other asserts, “I would vote for you General, if you were not tied to a ‘peace’ Copperhead, who says that Treason and Rebellion ought to triumph!!” Pendleton and his Copperhead allies, Clement Vallandigham and Horatio Seymour, celebrate the “peace” ticket and assert that the election of McClellan and Pendleton will be a triumph for the Confederacy and bring “peace at any price the rebels choose to ask for.”
This election year cartoon reminds its viewers of Democratic candidate McClellan’s military failures as leader of the Union army. His successor, the bulldog Ulysses S. Grant sits combatively on the tracks of the Weldon Railroad, the main Confederate supply route, facing the “Richmond” doghouse occupied by dogs Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and P.G.T. Beauregard. Grant assures President Lincoln, “I’m bound to take it,” while the very short Little Mac asks, “don’t you think you had better call the old dog off now. I'm afraid he'll hurt those other dogs, if he catches hold of them.” A tall and confident Lincoln answers, “Why little Mac that's the same pack of curs, that chased you aboard of the Gunboat two years ago, they are pretty nearly used up now. I think it’s best to give the old bull dog full swing to go in and finish them!”
You can view these and many other political cartoons held by the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection here.
