THE GRAVE OF THE UNION. OR MAJOR JACK DOWNING'S DREAM, DRAWN BY ZEKE.
New York: Bromley & Company, 1864. 19" x 24" lithograph broadside cartoon. Old tears repaired with tape on verso. Long horizontal tear at center has been reinforced by tape on verso. Light wrinkling and toning. The cartoon remains bold, solid, and intact. Good+.
"The first in a series of four harsh anti-Lincoln satires published by Bromley & Co. in New York. An imaginary dream of Jack Downing (a comic Yankee character created in the 1830s by Seba Smith) has Lincoln and some of his supporters and cabinet members as a band of undertakers about to inter the Constitution.
"In 1862, displeased by Attorney General Edward Bates's slowness in enforcing the Conspiracies Act, the President took matters into his own hands and issued a proclamation 'directing trial by court martial or military commissions of all persons who impeded the draft, discouraged enlistments or committed other disloyal acts.' Around thirty-eight thousand people were arrested, denied the right of habeas corpus, and held in jail until brought to trial. This heavy-handed act provides the fuel for the artist's attack here.
"Secretary Stanton is shown driving a hearse 'War Democracy' drawn by four horses with the heads of War Democrats (left to right): John Cochrane, Benjamin F. Butler, Thomas Francis Meagher, and Daniel S. Dickinson. Secretary Stanton says, 'My jackasses had a load, but they pull'd it through bravely. Cochrane: 'I pull for the side that pays the best always.' Butler: 'A million of dollars from New-Orleans'. . .
"At right journalist Horace Greeley and Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner bury a casket labeled 'Constitution. Three other caskets, 'Union,' 'Habeas Corpus,' and 'Free Speech Charge Express,' wait nearby. Greeley: 'I guess we'll bury it so deep that it will never get up again.' Sumner: 'Be still, you old fool. Let us first be sure that it is all under.'
"A sober Lincoln watches with folded arms, asking, 'Chase will it stay down?" Beside him, treasury secretary Salmon P. Chase responds, '. . . It must stay down. Or we shall all go up!' . . .
"Abolitionist clergyman Henry Ward Beecher presides over the ceremony with a black child in his arms, praying, 'Not thy will oh Lord! But mine be done.' Above them Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who has the legs and tail of a demon and holds a dagger, flies off crying, 'If it were done, when 'tis done'." [Reilly]
Reilly 1864-37. Weitenkampf 141. OCLC 647912979 [2- AAS, Clements], 299947771 [1- DLC] as of December 2024. Item #40557
Price: $1,750.00