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 Reconstruction Era

 “King Andy I”
  Source:  Harper’s Weekly
  Date:   November 3, 1866, p. 696

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Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
Thomas Nast and Horace Greeley remained political allies during the administration of President Andrew Johnson (1865-1868), the Democratic successor to the slain Abraham Lincoln.  The Harper’s Weekly cartoonist and New York Tribune editor both objected to Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction policies and supported the effort to impeach and remove the president from office.

In the November 3, 1866 issue of Harper’s Weekly, Nast ridiculed Johnson in “King Andy I:  How He Will Look and What He Will Do.”  The president is depicted as an angry monarch, and Secretary of State William Henry Seward as his prime minister.  In the background, Greeley and Nast appear among a group of Republican radicals and administration critics who are in line for execution.  The figure with his head on the chopping block is Congressman Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania.  He is followed by:  civil rights advocate Wendell Phillips, journalist John Forney, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, Congressman Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts, public lecturer Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, Greeley (wearing glasses), Congressman John Logan of Illinois, and running up to the end of the procession is Nast himself, armed with sketchpad and shackled with a ball-and-chain. 

 

 
 
 

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