|
|
"Holy Horror of Mrs. McCaffraty…"
[Mr. McCaffraty Voted against Negro Suffrage.]
This Harper's Weekly cartoon by an unknown artist depicts the racial
prejudice that underlay the rejection of black manhood suffrage in Washington,
D. C.
During the summer of 1865, while Congress was in recess, President Andrew
Johnson implemented his Reconstruction plan for the former Confederate states,
all of which quickly complied with its lenient requirements. When Congress
reconvened in December 1865, it refused to recognized the reconstructed state
governments or to seat their congressional representatives. Republicans
were disturbed by the reluctance of white Southerners to ratify the 13th
Amendment abolishing slavery, their refusal to grant voting rights to black men,
their enactment of black codes limiting the rights and liberties of blacks, and
their election of former Confederates, such as Confederate vice president
Alexander Stephens, to state and national offices.
Radical Republicans believed that voting rights for black men, who could not
vote in most Northern states as well as in Southern ones, was the linchpin
for safeguarding other rights. In 1865, Republicans proposed popular
referenda for black manhood suffrage in the states of Connecticut, Wisconsin,
and Minnesota, and the territory of Colorado, but all were defeated by the
electorate. Nationally, radical Republicans sought a precedent for federal
authority over voting rights by endeavoring to enact black manhood suffrage for
the District of Columbia. To dissuade congressional action, suffrage
opponents organized a popular referendum among the city's white voters in
December 1865. Nearly 7,000 ballots were cast against black voting rights,
with only 35 in favor.
In this cartoon, the black woman on the right is depicted as a lady of
beauty, refinement, and wealth (or at least middle-class respectability). On the
left, the Irish-American woman (safely assumed to be Catholic) is stereotyped
with ape-like features and working-class attire. A servant or housewife, Mrs.
McCaffraty has been to the market to purchase fresh produce and fish. Her basket
also holds two bottles of alcohol, frequently associated with Irish-Catholics.
The bracketed remark lets viewers know that she represents the type of
disreputable person who opposes black manhood suffrage. Images of Catholic
Irish-Americans were stereotyped consistently in the pages of Harper's Weekly
over the decades of the late-nineteenth century.
The images of blacks in Harper's Weekly would go through several
phases over the decades. From 1857, when the newspaper began publication,
until the Civil War, pictures of blacks were limited in number, but often stereotyped when
they did appear. After 1863, when George William Curtis became editor and
Thomas Nast began contributing cartoons regularly, African Americans were
usually drawn with dignity and respect. The 1870s were a period of
transition, as it was for the country itself. From the late 1870s, with
the end of Reconstruction, through the turn of the century, images of blacks
were exaggerated into increasingly severe racial stereotypes. This 1866
cartoon appears during the era when African Americans were most visibly supported by the journal.
In January 1866, the U.S. House passed a bill enfranchising black men in the
District of Columbia, but the measure failed in the Senate. In March 1867,
Congress enacted, over President Johnson's veto, the first Reconstruction Act,
which required among its stipulations that the former Confederate states grant
voting rights to black men. In March 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified
which declared that voting rights cannot be denied on the basis of "race,
color, or previous condition of servitude." It brought Northern
states in line with Southern ones. With the end of
Reconstruction, though, voting rights for blacks (especially in the South) were usually not enforced until
the "Second Reconstruction" of the mid-twentieth century.
Robert C. Kennedy
|
|
|
