Sep 27, 2018 - Sale 2486

Sale 2486 - Lot 109

Price Realized: $ 1,950
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(PRINTS--CARTOONS.) [Maurer, Louis; artist?] An Heir to the Throne, or the Next Republican Candidate. Lithograph, 13 1/4 x 16 3/4 inches; light toning, minimal wear. New York, Currier & Ives, ©1860 (possible restrike)

Additional Details

A deeply racist anti-Lincoln cartoon from the 1860 campaign, in which Lincoln announces his plan to install an African-American as his successor. Pro-Lincoln editor Horace Greeley says, "Gentlemen allow me to introduce to you, this illustrious individual in whom you will find combined, all the graces, and virtues of Black Republicanism, and whom we propose to run as our next Candidate for the Presidency." Lincoln responds: "How fortunate! that this intellectual and noble creature should have been discovered just at this time, to prove to the world the superiority of the Colored over the Anglo Saxon race, he will be a worthy successor to carry out the policy which I shall inaugurate." Between them stands their future candidate for the presidency: William Henry Johnson, a microcephalic circus performer known as "Zip the Pinhead" or "The What-Is-It" (his Barnum poster can be seen faintly in the background). He wonders about Lincoln's ominous-sounding "policy": "What can dey be?" "Attacks Lincoln's chief sin in Democratic eyes, his unbending insistence that the black man was a person with inalienable rights"--Lincoln Image, pages 38-39. Reilly 1860-33.