As soon as the result of the Presidential election of 1864 was known,
General Grant telegraphed from City Point his congratulations, and added
that “the election having passed off quietly... is a victory worth more
to the country than a battle won.”
“BRUTUS AND CAESAR.”
London “Punch” persistently maintained throughout the War for the Union
that the question of what to do with the blacks was the most bothersome
of all the problems President Lincoln had to solve. “Punch” thought the
Rebellion had its origin in an effort to determine whether there should
or should not be slavery in the United States, and was fought with this
as the main end in view. “Punch” of August 15th, 1863, contained the
cartoon reproduced on this page, the title being “Brutus and Caesar.”
President Lincoln was pictured as Brutus, while the ghost of Caesar,
which appeared in the tent of the American Brutus during the dark hours
of the night, was represented in the shape of a husky and anything but
ghost-like African, whose complexion would tend to make the blackest
tar look like skimmed milk in comparison. This was the text below the
cartoon: (From the American Edition of Shakespeare.) The Tent of Brutus
(Lincoln). Night. Enter the Ghost of Caesar.
BRUTUS: “Wall, now! Do tell! Who’s you?”
CAESAR: “I am dy ebil genus, Massa Linking. Dis child am awful
impressional!”
“Punch’s” cartoons were decidedly unfriendly in tone toward President
Lincoln, some of them being not only objectionable in the display of bad
taste, but offensive and vulgar. It is true that after the assassination
of the President, “Punch,” in illustrations, paid marked and deserved
tribute to the memory of the Great Emancipator, but it had little that
was good to say of him while he was among the living and engaged in
carrying out the great work for which he was destined to win eternal
fame.