No sooner was Abraham Lincoln made the candidate for the Presidency of
the Republican Party, in 1860, than the opposition began to lampoon and
caricature him. In the cartoon here reproduced, which is given the title
of:
“The Republican Party Going to the Right House,” Lincoln is represented
as entering the Lunatic Asylum, riding on a rail, carried by
Horace Greeley, the great Abolitionist; Lincoln, followed by his
“fellow-cranks,” is assuring the latter that the millennium is “going to
begin,” and that all requests will be granted.
Lincoln’s followers are depicted as those men and women composing the
“free love” element; those who want religion abolished; negroes, who
want it understood that the white man has no rights his black brother is
bound to respect; women suffragists, who demand that men be made subject
to female authority; tramps, who insist upon free lodging-houses;
criminals, who demand the right to steal from all they meet; and toughs,
who want the police forces abolished, so that “the b’hoys” can “run
wid de masheen,” and have “a muss” whenever they feel like it, without
interference by the authorities.