Visit HarpWeek.com
 

 Election Results

 “Clasping Hands Over the Bloodless (Sar)c(h)asm”
  Source:  Harper’s Weekly
  Date:   November 23, 1872, pp. 912-913

Click to see a large version of this cartoon...

Click to see a large version of this cartoon

Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
In one of his most amazing designs, “Clasping Hands Over the Bloodless (Sar)c(h)asm” (dated November 23, published November 13), Nast ventured a spectacular, grotesque overview of the 1872 presidential election.  In it, President Ulysses S. Grant, triumphantly returned to office for a second term, politely “clasps hands” with Uncle Sam.  Note Uncle Sam’s deep bow of respect and perhaps relief, as opposed to Grant’s more restrained gesture.  Tranquility has returned to the scene (above ground), with the republic safe for at least four more years.

Below Grant and Uncle Sam, the chasm closes to doom Greeley’s misbegotten coalition to an eternity of torment.  Greeley hangs at the zenith of this underworld, caught by the usual Gratz Brown tag on the tail of his coat.  His pockets disgorge literature as before:  “What I Know about Running for President,” “What I Know about Oblivion,” and “What I Know about Chasm.”  Immediately below the failed candidate, Whitelaw Reid sprawls as if suffering from a hangover.  His hand organ that “Is Not an Organ” carries his unfortunate editorial prediction of six weeks earlier:  “We Are on the Home Stretch.”

As in earlier instances, it is reasonable to surmise that Nast’s “Bloodless (Sar)c(h)asm” was well under way before the election of November 5.  The cartoonist’s principal impulse may have come from a pair of apocalyptic designs by his Greeleyite rival, Matt Morgan of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.  In the Leslie’s issue post-dated November 2, a sweeping Morgan double-page cartoon shows the nation menaced by a dark horde of Republican villains.  Columbia is holding the tatters of an American flag as she indicates to a group of departed national leaders (including Washington and Lincoln) the corrupt danger rising from the lower depths.

A second tortured image by Morgan on the cover of the following issue portrays “The Republic on the Brink.” Miss Columbia stands disconsolate and barefoot at the edge of another yawning chasm.  A cigar-puffing “King Grant,” apparently intoxicated, commands his Republican accomplices (left-right), Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, Senator Oliver Morton of Indiana, Vice President Schuyler Colfax, and Senator Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, to “Push her off, boys. I’ll kick this thing over. We must have things our way.”  Nast would simply turn this notion around, point it in the opposite direction, and elaborate it considerably.

 

 
 

Website design © 2001-2005 HarpWeek, LLC
All Content © 1998-2005 HarpWeek, LLC
Please submit questions to webmaster@harpweek.com