This cartoon, labeled “A Job for the New Cabinetmaker,” was printed in
“Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper” on February 2d, 1861, a month and
two days before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United
States. The Southern states had seceded from the Union, the Confederacy
was established, with Jefferson Davis as its President, the Union had
been split in two, and the task Lincoln had before him was to glue the
two parts of the Republic together. In his famous speech, delivered a
short time before his nomination for the Presidency by the Republican
National Convention at Chicago, in 1860, Lincoln had said: “A house
divided against itself cannot stand; this nation cannot exist half slave
and half free.” After his inauguration as President, Mr. Lincoln went
to work to glue the two pieces together, and after four years of bloody
war, and at immense cost, the job was finished; the house of the Great
American Republic was no longer divided; the severed sections--the North
and the South--were cemented tightly; the slaves were freed, peace was
firmly established, and the Union of states was glued together so well
that the nation is stronger now than ever before. Lincoln was just the
man for that job, and the work he did will last for all time. “The New
Cabinetmaker” knew his business thoroughly, and finished his task of
glueing in a workmanlike manner. At the very moment of its completion,
five days after the surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox, the Martyr
President fell at the hands of the assassin, J. Wilkes Booth.
“I CAN STAND IT IF THEY CAN.”
United States Senator Benjamin Wade, of Ohio, Henry Winter Davis,
of Maryland, and Wendell Phillips were strongly opposed to President
Lincoln’s re-election, and Wade and Davis issued a manifesto. Phillips
made several warm speeches against Lincoln and his policy.
When asked if he had read the manifesto or any of Phillips’ speeches,
the President replied:
“I have not seen them, nor do I care to see them. I have seen enough to
satisfy me that I am a failure, not only in the opinion of the people
in rebellion, but of many distinguished politicians of my own party. But
time will show whether I am right or they are right, and I am content to
abide its decision.
“I have enough to look after without giving much of my time to the
consideration of the subject of who shall be my successor in office. The
position is not an easy one; and the occupant, whoever he may be, for
the next four years, will have little leisure to pluck a thorn or plant
a rose in his own pathway.”
It was urged that this opposition must be embarrassing to his
Administration, as well as damaging to the party. He replied: “Yes, that
is true; but our friends, Wade, Davis, Phillips, and others are hard
to please. I am not capable of doing so. I cannot please them without
wantonly violating not only my oath, but the most vital principles upon
which our government was founded.
“As to those who, like Wade and the rest, see fit to depreciate my
policy and cavil at my official acts, I shall not complain of them. I
accord them the utmost freedom of speech and liberty of the press, but
shall not change the policy I have adopted in the full belief that I am
right.
“I feel on this subject as an old Illinois farmer once expressed himself
while eating cheese. He was interrupted in the midst of his repast by
the entrance of his son, who exclaimed, ‘Hold on, dad! there’s skippers
in that cheese you’re eating!’
“‘Never mind, Tom,’ said he, as he kept on munching his cheese, ‘if they
can stand it I can.’”