"THE NIGGER" IN THE WOODPILE.
New York: Currier & Ives, 1860. Lithograph illustrated broadside, 17" x 13-1/2." Uniform mild toning, shallow blank upper corner chip, light wear. Very Good.
The Republicans depicted Lincoln as a familiar, iconic figure in American life: the self-made frontiersman who had pulled himself up by his bootstraps and climbed the ladder of success. However, concealed by that reassuring image was the Republicans' revolutionary platform of Emancipation and Civil Rights for the Negro.
The cartoon is, Reilly says, "A racist parody of Republican efforts to play down the antislavery plank in their 1860 platform. Horace Greeley, the prominent New York publicist of the party, stands at left reassuring a man identified as 'Young America'. 'I assure you my friend,' he says, 'that you can safely vote our ticket, for we have no connection with the Abolition party, but our Platform is composed entirely of rails, split by our Candidate.' Young America, who represents progressive Democrats, points insistently toward the right, where candidate Abraham Lincoln sits atop a makeshift construction made of rails marked 'Republican Platform,' which imprisons a grinning black man. He tells Greeley, 'It's no use old fellow! you can't pull that wool over my eyes for I can see 'the Nigger' peeping through the rails.' Meanwhile, Lincoln reflects, 'Little did I think when I split these rails that they would be the means of elevating me to my present position'."
Reilly 1860-30. Gale 4849. Weitenkampf 123. OCLC 56915079 [2- Clements, Boston Ath.], 1037375141 [1- Boston Public], 1136535662 [1- AAS] as of October 2022. Item #38871
Price: $4,500.00