Caricature and Other Comic Art Part 31

"This is the true Federal faith, which except a man believe and practice faithfully, beyond all doubt he shall be cursed perpetually."

A rude but very curious specimen of the caricature of the early time is given on the next page of the collision on the floor of the House of Representatives between Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold, both representatives from Connecticut. Lyon, a native of Ireland, was an ardent Republican, who played a conspicuous part in politics during the final struggle between the Republicans and the Federalists. Roger Griswold, on the contrary, a member of an old and distinguished Connecticut family, a graduate of its ancient college, and a member of its really ill.u.s.trious bar, was a p.r.o.nounced Federalist. He was also a gentleman who had no natural relish for a strong-minded, unlettered emigrant who founded a town in his new country, built mills and foundries, invented processes, established a newspaper, and was elected to Congress. If Hamilton and Griswold and the other extreme Federalists had had their way in this country, there would have been no Matthew Lyons among us to create a new world for mankind, and begin the development of a better political system. Nor, indeed, was Matthew Lyon sufficiently tolerant of the old and tried methods that had become inadequate. He was not likely, either--at the age of fifty-two, standing upon the summit of a very successful career, which was wholly his own work--to regard as equal to himself a man of thirty-six, who seemed to owe his importance chiefly to his lineage. So here was a broad basis for an antipathy which the strife of politics could easily aggravate into an aversion extreme and fiery--fiery, at least, on the part of the Irishman.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fight in Congress between Lyon and Griswold, February 15th, 1798.

"He in a trice struck Griswold thrice Upon his head, enraged, sir; Who seized the tongs to ease his wrongs, And Griswold thus engaged, sir."]

Imagine this process complete, and the House, on the last day of the year 1798, in languid session, balloting. The two members were standing near one another outside the bar, when Griswold made taunting allusion to an old "campaign story" of Matthew Lyon's having been sentenced to wear a wooden sword for cowardice in the field. Lyon, in a fury, spit in Griswold's face. Instantly the House was in an uproar; and although the impetuous Lyon apologized to the House, he only escaped expulsion, after eleven days' debate, through the const.i.tutional requirement of a two-thirds vote. This affair called forth a caricature in which the Irish member was depicted as a lion standing on his hind-legs wearing a wooden sword, while Griswold, handkerchief in hand, exclaims, "What a beastly action!"

The vote for expulsion--52 to 44--did not satisfy Mr. Griswold. Four days after the vote occurred the outrageous scene rudely delineated in the picture already mentioned. Griswold, armed with what the Republican editor called "a stout hickory club," and the Federalist editor a "hickory stick," a.s.saulted Lyon while he was sitting at his desk, striking him on the head and shoulders several times before he could extricate himself. But at last Lyon got upon his feet, and, seizing the tongs, rushed upon the enemy. This is the moment selected by the artist.

They soon after closed and fell to the floor, where they enjoyed a good "rough-and-tumble" fight, until members pulled them apart. A few minutes after they chanced to meet again at the "water table," near one of the doors. Lyon was now provided with a stick, but Griswold had none. "Their eyes no sooner met," says the Federalist reporter, "than Mr. Lyon sprung to attack Mr. Griswold." A member handed Griswold a stick, and there was a fair prospect of another fight, when the Speaker interfered with so much energy that the antagonists were again torn apart. The battle was not renewed on the floor of Congress.

But it was continued elsewhere. Under that amazing sedition law of the Federalists, Lyon was tried a few months after for saying in his newspaper that President Adams had an "unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp," had turned men out of office for their opinions, and had written "a bullying message" upon the French imbroglio of 1798. He was found guilty, sentenced to pay a fine of a thousand dollars, besides the heavy costs of the prosecution, to be imprisoned four months, and to continue in confinement until the fine was paid. Of course the people of his district stood by him, and, while he was in prison, re-elected him to Congress by a great majority; and his fine was repaid to his heirs in 1840 by Congress, with forty-two years' interest. These events made a prodigious stir in their time. Matthew Lyon's presence in the House of Representatives, his demeanor there, and his triumphal return from prison to Congress, were the first distinct notification to parties interested that the sceptre was pa.s.sing from the Few to the Many.

The satire and burlesque of the Jeffersonian period, from 1798 to 1809, were abundant in quant.i.ty, if not of shining excellence. To the reader of the present day all savors of burlesque in the political utterances of that time, so preposterously violent were partisans on both sides. It is impossible to take a serious view of the case of an editor who could make it a matter of boasting that he had opposed the Republican measures for eight years "without a single exception." The press, indeed, had then no independent life; it was the minion and slave of party. It is only in our own day that the press begins to exist for its own sake, and descant with reasonable freedom on topics other than the Importance of Early Rising and the Customs of the Chinese. The reader would neither be edified nor amused by seeing Mr. Jefferson kneeling before a stumpy pillar labeled "Altar of Gallic Despotism," upon which are Paine's "Age of Reason" and the works of Rousseau, Voltaire, and Helvetius, with the demon of the French Revolution crouching behind it, and the American eagle soaring aloft, bearing in its talons the Const.i.tution and the independence of the United States. Pictures of that nature, of great size, crowded with objects, emblems, and sentences--an elaborate blending of burlesque, allegory, and enigma--were so much valued by that generation that some of them were engraved upon copper.

On the day of the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson as President of the United States, March 4th, 1801, a parody appeared in the _Centinel_ of Boston, a Federalist paper of great note in its time, which may serve our purpose here:

Monumental Inscription.

"_That life is long which answers Life's great end._"

Yesterday expired, deeply regretted by millions of grateful Americans, and by all good men, THE FEDERAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES: animated by A WASHINGTON, AN ADAMS, A HAMILTON, KNOX, PICKERING, WOLCOTT, M'HENRY, MARSHALL, STODDERT, AND DEXTER.

aet. 12 years.

Its death was occasioned by the secret arts and open violence of foreign and domestic demagogues: Notwithstanding its whole life was devoted to the performance of every duty to promote the Union, Credit, Peace, Prosperity, Honor, and Felicity of its Country.

At its birth, it found the Union of the States dissolving like a rope of snow; It hath left it stronger than the threefold cord.

It found the United States bankrupts in estate and reputation; It hath left them unbounded in credit, and respected throughout the world.

It found the Treasuries of the United States and Individual States empty; It hath left them full and overflowing.

It found all the evidences of public debts worthless as rags; It hath left them more valuable than gold and silver.

It found the United States at war with the Indian nations; It hath concluded peace with them all.

It found the aboriginals of the soil inveterate enemies of the whites; It hath exercised toward them justice and generosity, and hath left them fast friends.

It found Great Britain in possession of all the frontier posts; It hath demanded their surrender, and it leaves them in the possession of the United States.

It found the American sea-coast utterly defenseless; It hath left it fortified.

It found our a.r.s.enals empty, and magazines decaying; It hath left them full of ammunition and warlike implements.

It found our country dependent on foreign nations for engines of defense; It hath left manufactories of cannon and musquets in full work.

It found the American Nation at war with Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli; It hath made peace with them all.

It found American freemen in Turkish slavery, where they had languished in chains for years; It hath ransomed them and set them free.

It found the war-worn, invalid soldier starving from want; or, like Belisarius, begging his refuse-meat from door to door; It hath left ample provision for the regular payment of his pension.

It found the commerce of our country confined almost to coasting craft; It hath left it whitening every sea with its canvas, and cheering every clime with its stars.

It found our mechanics and manufacturers idle in the streets for want of employ; It hath left them full of business, prosperous, contented, and happy.

It found the yeomanry of the country oppressed with unequal taxes; their farms, houses, and barns decaying; their cattle selling at the sign-posts; and they driven to desperation and rebellion; It hath left their coffers in cash, their houses in repair, their barns full, their farms overstocked, and their produce commanding ready money and a high price.

In short, it found them poor, indigent malcontents; It hath left them wealthy friends to order and good government.

It found the United States deeply in debt to France and Holland; It hath paid all the demands of the former, and the princ.i.p.al part of the latter.

It found the country in a ruinous alliance with France; It hath honorably dissolved the connection, and set us free.

It found the United States without a swivel on float for their defense; It hath left a Navy--composed of 34 ships of war, mounting 918 guns, and manned by 7350 gallant tars.

It found the exports of our country a mere song in value; It hath left them worth above seventy millions of dollars per annum.

In one word, it found America disunited, poor, insolvent, weak, discontented, and wretched; It hath left her united, wealthy, respectable, strong, happy, and prosperous.

Let the faithful historian, in after-times, say these things of its successor, if he can.

And yet, notwithstanding all these services and blessings, there are found many, very many, weak, degenerate sons, who, lost to virtue, to grat.i.tude, and patriotism, openly exult that this Administration is no more, and that the "Sun of Federalism is set forever."

"_Oh shame, where is thy blush?_"

AS ONE TRIBUTE OF GRAt.i.tUDE IN THESE TIMES, THIS MONUMENT OF THE TALENTS AND SERVICES OF THE DECEASED IS RAISED BY

The Centinel.

_March 4th, 1801._

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Gerry-Mander. (Boston, 1811.)]

The victorious Republicans, if less skillful than their adversaries in the burlesque arts, had their own methods of parrying and returning such a.s.saults as this. At an earlier period in Mr. Jefferson's ascendency, the politicians, borrowing the idea from Catholic times, employed stuffed figures and burlesque processions in lieu of caricature. While the people were still in warm sympathy with the French Revolution, William Smith, a Representative in Congress from South Carolina, gave deep offense to many of his const.i.tuents by opposing certain resolutions offered by "Citizen Madison" expressive of that sympathy. There was no burlesque artist then in South Carolina, but the Democrats of Charleston contrived, notwithstanding, to caricature the offender and "his infernal junto." A platform was erected in an open place in Charleston, upon which was exhibited to a noisy crowd, from early in the morning until three in the afternoon, a rare a.s.semblage of figures: A woman representing the Genius of Britain inviting the recreant Representatives to share the wages of her iniquity; William Smith advancing toward her with eager steps, his right hand stretched out to receive his portion, in his left holding a paper upon which was written "_Six per cents_,"

and wearing upon his breast another with "40,000 _in the Funds_;"

Benedict Arnold with his hand full of checks and bills; Fisher Ames labeled "400,000 _in the Funds_;" the devil and "Young Pitt" goading on the reprobate Americans. In front of the stage was a gallows for the due hanging and burning of these figures when the crowd were tired of gazing upon them. Each of the characters was provided with a label exhibiting an appropriate sentiment. The odious Smith was made to confess that his sentence was just: "The love of gold, a foreign education, and foreign connections d.a.m.n me." "Young Pitt" owned to having let loose the Algerines upon the Americans, and Fisher Ames confessed that from the time when he began life as a horse-jockey his "_Ames_ had been villainy."

It is an objection to this kind of caricature that the weather may interfere with its proper presentation. A shower of rain obliterated most of those labels, and left the figures themselves in a reduced and draggled condition. But, according to the local historian, the exhibition was continued, "to the great mirth and entertainment of the boys, who would not quit the field until a total demolition of the figures took place," nor "before they had taken down the breeches of the effigy of the Representative of this State and given him repeated castigations." In the evening the colors of Great Britain were dipped in oil and _French_ brandy, and burned at the same fire which had consumed the effigies.

Later in the Jeffersonian period, the burlesque procession--_caricature vivante_--was occasionally employed by the New England Federalists to excite popular disapproval of the embargo which suspended foreign commerce. Elderly gentlemen in Newburyport remember hearing their fathers describe the battered old hulk of a vessel, with rotten rigging and tattered sails, manned by ragged and cadaverous sailors, that was drawn in such a procession in 1808, the year of the Presidential election. There are even a few old people who remember seeing the procession, for in those healthy old coast towns the generations are linked together, and the whole history of New England is sometimes represented in the group round the post-office of a fine summer morning.

The odd-looking picture of the Gerry-mander, on the previous page, belongs to the same period, and preserves a record not creditable to party politicians. Democratic leaders in Ma.s.sachusetts, in order to secure the election of two Senators of their party, redistricted the State with absurd disregard of geographical facts. The _Centinel_ exhibited the fraud by means of a colored map, which the artist, Gilbert Stuart, by a few touches, converted into the immortal Gerry-mander.

Governor Gerry, though not the author of the scheme, nor an approver of it, justly shares the discredit of a measure which he might have vetoed, but did not.

The war of 1812 yields its quota of caricature to the collector's port-folio. "John Bull making a New Batch of Ships to send to the Lakes"

is an obvious imitation of Gillray's masterpiece of Bonaparte baking a new batch of kings. The contribution levied upon Alexandria, and the retreat of a party of English troops from Baltimore, furnish subjects to a draughtsman who had more patriotic feeling than artistic invention.

His "John Bull" is a stout man, with a bull's head and a long sword, who utters pompous words. "I must have all your flour, all your tobacco, all your ships, all your merchandise--every thing except your _Porter_ and _Perry_. Keep them out of sight; I have had enough of _them_ already."

No doubt this was comforting to the patriotic mind while it was lamenting a Capitol burned and a President in flight.

CHAPTER XXVI.

LATER AMERICAN CARICATURE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Thomas Nast, 1875.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHOLESALE. RETAIL. (_Harper's Weekly_, September 16th, 1871.)]

The era of good feeling which followed the war of 1812, and which exhausted the high, benign spirit infused into public affairs by Mr.

Jefferson, could not be expected to call forth satirical pictures of remarkable quality. The irruption of the positive and uncontrollable Jackson into politics made amends. Once more the mind of the country was astir, and again nearly the whole of the educated cla.s.s was arrayed against the ma.s.ses of the people. The two political parties in every country, call them by whatever disguising names we may, are the Rich and the Poor. The rich are naturally inclined to use their power to give their own cla.s.s an advantage; the poor naturally object; and this is the underlying, ever-operating cause of political strife in all countries that enjoy a degree of freedom; and this is the reason why, in times of political crisis, the instructed cla.s.s is frequently in the wrong.