September 22, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/22/2011
Newspaper, Harper's Weekly, New York.16pp., complete issue, disbound, September 1, 1866, minor edge foxing, VG. Certainly one of Thomas Nast's most stark engravings is displayed in this vertical center spread, "Reconstruction." Nast opposed Johnson's reconstruction plan which included pardon to all former confederates. At the center, President Johnson is arm-in-arm with a black soldier. In this cartoon, the scene depicting a slavery auction and lashing (upper-center) underlines the continuity between the pre-war and post-war South. Nast incorporates images of race riots in Memphis (upper-left) and New Orleans (upper-right) as symbols of the sustained and extreme violence against blacks committed by some Southern whites. In the lower-center frame of this cartoon, Johnson-the-snake-charmer entrances the CSA snake to enthrall the black man on the floor while Sectaries Stanton, Wells and Seward observe. Minor edge crack in margins of this striking image.
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