Details
Creator Currier & Ives.
Title "The irrepressible conflict" or the Republican barge in danger. [graphic].
Publisher New York : Published by Currier & Ives, 152 Nassau St
Publisher N.Y. New York. 1860
Date 1860
Physical Description 1 print : lithograph ; sheet 34 x 46 cm (13.5 x 18 in.)
Description Cartoon predicting doom for the Republican Party whose moderate antislavery factions intentionally caused radical abolitionist William Seward to lose the presidential nomination at the National Convention in 1860. Depicts the "Republican Barge" with Lincoln at the helm being tossed on rough sea near a rocky shore. Within the boat Horace Greeley, Missouri Congressman Edward Bates, and Globe editor Francis Blair disparage Seward and the "Irrepressible Conflict" (a catchphrase from an 1858 Seward speech referring to the conflict within the Union over slavery) he has caused as they throw him overboard. The hoisted Seward warns that he alone can save the boat. An African American man, portrayed as a racist caricature and attired in a white collared shirt, a bowtie, a striped waistcoat, pants, and a "Discords Patent Life Preserver" wrapped around his chest, says in the vernacular, “if de boat and all hands sink, dis Nigger sure to swim, Yah! Yah!” Additional passengers, including Massachusetts Governor Nathaniel Banks and "Courier" editor James Webb, comment on the breakers ahead and the improbability of being saved. Brother Jonathan (predecessor to Uncle Sam) anxiously stands on the shore admonishing them not to throw out Seward but to “heave that tarnal Nigger out.”
Is referenced by Weitenkampf, p. 122
Reilly, 1860-28
Nevins and Weitenkampf, A century of political cartoons, p. 86
Notes Probably drawn by Louis Maurer.
Verso stamped: L.A. De Vries.
Title from item.
Date from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1860 by Currier & Ives in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern Distt of N.Y.
Purchase 1960.
RVCDC
Description revised 2021.
Access points revised 2021.
Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Subject Banks, Nathaniel Prentiss, 1816-1894 -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Bates, Edward, 1793-1869 -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Blair, Francis Preston, 1791-1876 -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Greeley, Horace, 1811-1872 -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Webb, J. Watson (James Watson), 1802-1884 -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- )
Abolition movement -- United States.
African American men -- Caricatures and cartoons.
Antislavery movements -- United States.
Boats.
Brother Jonathan (Nickname) -- 1860-1870.
Life preservers.
Presidential conventions -- United States -- 1860.
Racism in popular culture.
Geographic subject United States -- Politics and government -- 1857-1861.
Genre Anti-abolition prints -- United States. -- 1860-1870.
Lithographs -- 1860-1870.
Political cartoons -- 1860-1870.
Location Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| political cartoons - 1860 - 28 [6418.F]
Accession number 6418.F