By the evening of November 3, 1868 it was pretty clear to most informed observers that Ulysses S. Grant had been elected president. If you expected his supporters to be magnanimous towards the defeated Democrats, you would be wrong, as least in regard to Harper’s Weekly.
Harpers’ had made the election of Grant its main priority for six months. It responded to his election with a cartoon of the esteemed general about to slice the head off of the defeated Seymour.
The full cartoon was the entire front page of the weekly newspaper:
The flag Grant holds aloft is emblazoned with the words “Union” and “Equal Rights.” By 1868 Republicans at Harper’s believed that the war had not only been fought for Union and to end slavery. They now thought that the more expansive goal of “Equal Rights” for blacks was a natural result of Union victory.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic banner under Seymour is the word “Rebellion.” The fact that the Democratic Convention in New York included Nathan Bedford Forrest and Wade Hampton among its luminaries provided a useful reminder to voters that the Democrats were tied to the rebellion. “Not every Democrat was a Rebel, but every Rebel was a Democrat.”
Although most Americans had not heard of the Ku Klux Klan a year earlier, it had become so notorious by the end of 1868 that Seymour’s horse has a KKK brand, alleging ownership of the Democratic Party by white terrorists.
In Seymour’s back pocket is a speech that begins with the words “My friends…” This reminded voters that Seymour had started his speech appealing for calm during the Draft Riots by addressing a crowd with those words. The allegation that Seymour was a friend of rioters stuck with the Democrat right through the election campaign.
