Description

This cartoon is an anti-Lincoln satire produced for the Copperhead market, attacking the alleged administration's abuse of the Constitution. Horace Greeley and Senator Charles Sumner are shown laying the Constitution's casket into a grave, with Greeley gloating "I guess we'll bury it so deep that it will never get up again." Lincoln asks "Chase, will it stay down?" to which Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase answers, "My God, it must stay down, or we shall all go up!" Other caskets marked "Free speech," "Habeas corpus," and "Union" await burial. The abolitionist Rev. Henry Ward Beecher presides over the funeral holding an African-American baby, intoning "Not thy will, oh Lord! But mine be done." For more information on this cartoon, see "Lincoln Lore" number 1710, August, 1980, pages 3-4. Part of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, courtesy of the Indiana State Museum.