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“The Death-Bed Marriage” of Greeley’s Liberal-Republicanism to “The Daughter
of Democracy” took place at the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore on
July 10, 1872, and was duly celebrated in this grim caricature. Longtime
Republican Horace Greeley kneels to take, for better or worse, the moribund hand
of the Democratic Party, which has nominated him as its presidential candidate.
The sarcastic use of “Nigger” in the subtitle refers to an 1868 Nast cartoon, “Would You Marry Your Daughter to a Nigger?” which wondered if the
anti-black Democratic Party might nominate civil rights veteran, Salmon Chase.
(They did not.) Here, the term refers to Greeley, the former abolitionist, and
underscores the abandonment of his principles.
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