The Great Exhibition of 1860

The Great Exhibition of 1860


51

Title: The Great Exhibition of 1860

Year: 1860

Creator: Louis Maurer, Lithograph, Currier and Ives, New York

Description: The artist satirizes the antislavery orientation of the Republican platform.
Abolitionist editor Horace Greeley grinds his New York “Tribune” organ as candidate Lincoln prances to the music. Lincoln is tethered with a cord to Greeley’s index finger, and his lips are padlocked shut. Although the abolitionist bias of the party was well known, Lincoln and the Republicans tried to de-emphasize the slavery issue during the 1860 campaign. In the background stands William H. Seward, holding a wailing black infant. At right stand two other New York editors friendly to the Republican cause, Henry J. Raymond of the “New York Times” (the short, bearded man holding an ax) and James Watson Webb of the New York “Courier and Enquirer.” The artist is poking fun at the measures Webb took in August 1860 to revive his newspaper’s flagging circulation, which included a reduction of the paper’s price to three cents and the hiring of newsboys to sell the “Courier” on the streets.

URL: http://loc.harpweek.com/LCPoliticalCartoons/DisplayCartoonMedium.asp?MaxID=44&UniqueID=33&Year=1860&YearMark=1860