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“King Andy"
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November 3, 1866
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Thomas Nast
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Alabama Claims;
Analogies, Royalty;
Assassination;
Civil War, Remembrance;
Congress;
Congressional Elections;
Journalists/Journalism;
Presidential Administration, Andrew Johnson;
Reconstruction;
Symbols, King Neptune;
Symbols, Liberty;
Women, Symbolic;
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Butler, Benjamin;
Greeley, Horace;
Johnson, Andrew;
Logan, John;
Seward, William Henry;
Sumner, Charles;
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American South;
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How He Will Look And What He Will Do

This
cartoon appeared shortly before the 1866 congressional elections, and
illustrates the fierce conflict between President Andrew Johnson and
radical Republicans over Reconstruction policy.
Cartoonist Thomas Nast portrays President Johnson as King Andy,
with Secretary of State William Henry Seward as his prime minister,
pointing to the president’s radical Republican critics in line for the
chopping block. On the left is Navy Secretary Gideon Welles as King Neptune;
on the right sits Lady Liberty in chains.
In the
struggle over Reconstruction, rumors spread among Republicans that the
Democratic president had monarchical designs.
The notion was reinforced by Secretary Seward’s speech in St.
Louis in which he compared his relationship with the president to that
between a king and his prime minister.
The circular inset depicts Seward in profile, revealing scars
from the attempt on his life the night President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The
pose may seem insensitive, but it was a potent reminder that one should
not talk loosely about the serious business of execution and
assassination. The line
underneath the image—“Do you want Andrew Johnson president or
king?”—was falsely attributed to Seward after Democratic victories
in Ohio’s October elections.
Following
the assassination of Republican President Abraham Lincoln, the task of
reconstructing the Union after the Civil War fell to Lincoln’s vice
president, Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat.
The new president’s Reconstruction policy
was
lenient, allowing the former Confederate states to return quickly to the
Union, and leaving the civil rights of most newly freed slaves in the
hands of their former owners. Shocked
congressional Republicans refused to recognize the state governments
established under Johnson’s program and began passing their own
Reconstruction legislation. The
president angered and radicalized Republicans even more by vetoing the Freedmen’s Bureau Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1866,
although Congress overrode the vetoes.
On August 14-16, 1866,
Johnson’s supporters met at the National Union Convention
in Philadelphia, which kicked off the president’s campaign that fall
to elect congressmen favorable to his Reconstruction policy and to
defeat those radical Republicans opposed to it.
From August 28 to September 15, 1866, Johnson, joined by key
administration figures, embarked on a campaign speaking tour across the
nation. The itinerary took
the president north from Washington, D.C., to New York, west to Chicago,
south to St. Louis, and east through the Ohio River valley back to the
nation’s capital, and was therefore called the “swing around the
circle.” Rumors
circulated widely that the president delivered his speeches while drunk.
At various stops, Johnson blamed Congress (as they blamed him)
for the recent race riot in New Orleans.
In response to a question from the audience, the president
sarcastically suggested the execution of leading radical Republicans,
thus inspiring the featured Nast cartoon.
Here, the man with his head on
the chopping block is Congressman Thaddeus Stevens of Massachusetts, the
radical Republican who was the president’s chief adversary in the
House of Representatives. Behind
Stevens are: abolitionist
and civil rights advocate Wendell Phillips; publisher John W. Forney;
Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, Johnson’s main foe in the
Senate; Congressman Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts; renowned public
speaker Anna Elizabeth Dickinson; New
York Tribune editor Horace Greeley; Congressman John Logan of
Illinois; and, at the very end, Harper’s Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nast himself, with a sketchbook
under his arm.
Johnson’s Order of the Dead
Ducks medallion refers to a remark the president made regarding one of
his leading opponents in the press, John W. Forney.
In February 1866, Johnson declined to comment on Forney’s
criticism, remarking, “I don’t waste my fire on dead ducks.”
Cartoonist Nast seized the term and turned it against Johnson on
several occasions, usually contrasting the moribund image against the
president’s illusions of grandeur.
The symbol also extends the metaphor of “lame duck,” a term
for an outgoing officeholder’s lack of political clout, to its logical
extreme: Johnson was not
merely a lame-duck president; with talk of impending impeachment, he was
a dead duck.
The “290” medallion worn by
Navy Secretary Welles is the original shipyard number for the Alabama, the British-built cruiser under the command of
Confederate admiral Raphael Semmes, which destroyed or captured 69 Union
ships between September 1862 and June 1864.
British outfitting of Confederate ships continued to undermine
the improvement of U.S.-British relations in the post-war period.
President Johnson’s “swing
around the circle” speaking tour was a public-relations fiasco,
further undermining popular and congressional support for the president.
The November elections brought Republicans a sweeping victory. They gained enough congressional seats to allow them a
two-thirds majority to override any presidential vetoes.
Although congressional Republicans were thereafter in control of
Reconstruction, Johnson’s continued intransigence in implementing
their policies was a major reason for Republican efforts to impeach
and remove the president from office.
Robert C. Kennedy
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