y late 1871, it seemed increasingly likely that a group of Republican
liberals would oppose President Ulysses S. Grant’s reelection for a variety of
reasons. Although the liberals had supported the Reconstruction policies of
congressional Republicans in the late 1860s, most opposed continued federal
intervention in the South after the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment in March
1870. Republican liberals also criticized what they considered to be the Grant
administration’s expansionist, bellicose foreign policy. Although liberals
themselves, cartoonist Thomas Nast and editor George William Curtis of
Harper’s Weekly did not join the anti-Grant movement because of their
personal loyalty to the president and their disagreement with administration
critics’ stance that the federal government had no further role to play in
protecting civil rights in the South.
Another issue separating administration detractors and defenders was civil
service reform. In 1871, President Grant had established the first federal
Civil Service Commission and appointed Curtis to head it. The bolting liberals,
though, believed that Grant was not committed to civil service reform and that
his practice of appointing unqualified, sometimes corrupt cronies contradicted
the president’s rhetorical stance in favor of a merit system of public service.
Accordingly, this cartoon may have been Thomas Nast’s response to a Matt Morgan
carton in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, which attacked
President Grant’s supposed lukewarm support of civil service reform.
In “What I Know About Horace Greeley,” Greeley “The Traitor” (left panel)
bows humbly to Jefferson Davis, presenting bail in a Richmond courtroom. The
image forcibly reminded readers of Greeley’s controversial action in May 1867 to
secure a bond for the release from federal custody of the former president of
the Confederacy. Meanwhile, Greeley “The Patriot” (right panel) prepares to
sling “Tammany Mud” at President Grant who sits on the White House porch,
imperturbably puffing his cigar and following the progress of “Civil Service
Reform.” In this and other cartoons, Nast taints Greeley with the corruption of
Tammany Hall, the major Democratic machine in New York City. Nast and Curtis
believed that Greeley and the Tribune had been too soft on the Republican
faction cooperating with the Tweed Ring before its ouster in late 1871.
Here, Nast presents Grant as concerned for the success of civil service
reform. The cartoonist probably assumed he was following the example of his
editor in defending the president, but Curtis complained privately to Nast about
the personal attack on Greeley. Curtis tried several times (unsuccessfully) to
dissuade Nast from ridiculing those dissident liberals the editor considered to
be friends and thoughtful men of good will. On practical grounds, Curtis
realized that, whatever the result of the upcoming presidential election, he
would need to work with his fellow reformers in the future to secure mutual
policy goals.