Old Abr'm

When Abraham Lincoln was first named for the legislature in 1832 he said:

"I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. My politics are short and sweet, like the old lady's dance. . . . If elected I shall be thankful; if not all will be the same."

Political caricaturists were quick to seize upon the rude rusticity of Lincoln features and figure.* During the Lincoln-Douglas debates every U. S. newspaper-reader came to recognize the beardless, bony railsplitter, shabbily clothed, big stick in hand, whacking at his rotund little antagonist. At this time the names "Honest Abe," "Old Abr'm" and "The Rail-Splitter" were popularly given Lincoln. These and others less affectionate stayed with him until his assassination.

Currier & Ives, famed poster lithographers (TIME, Nov. 25), printed a cartoon of Lincoln, being ridden on a rail to a lunatic asylum (the White House) by the young Republican Party. Shirt-sleeved, he balances precariously on his perch, regarding the troupe, black libertines, thugs, abolitionists, Mormons. One particularly vicious lady looks up into his face saying: "Oh, what a beautiful man he is. I feel a passional attraction." Out of "Abe's" mouth floats a balloon: "Now my friends, I'm almost in and the millenium is about to begin so ask what you want and it shall be granted."

In England, Lincoln was as harshly treated as at home. Punch printed grotesque caricatures of the "boor" by its greatest draughtsmen, John Leech and Sir John Tenniel, later famed for his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland illustrations. The magazine Fun carried a series of bitter drawings by Matthew Somerville Morgan, whose work has only recently been discovered by Lincoln authorities, purporting to show "Honest Abe" a thief, demagog and charlatan. But it was in the South the most galling pictures were drawn. One Adalbert J. Volck of Baltimore struck upon the novel idea of showing ''Honest Abe" as an evil Negro. In a delicate line drawing Volck depicted Lincoln as a Negroid puppet-master capering on a stage, surrounded by his puppets who are seen to be Cabinet Members Chase, Cameron and Welles and Generals Fremont, Scott and McLellan. When, as President-elect in 1861, Lincoln journeyed to Washington, receiving great acclaim in the northern cities, he was warned to forego a visit to Democratic Baltimore. Friends commissioned Allan Pinkerton, spy (later founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency), to investigate. His report influenced Lincoln to make no public appearance, to entrain quietly for Washington. Southern papers quickly screamed that he was a coward. In Baltimore, the slighted city, citizens incensed at his failure to appear, wrecked vengeance on a Massachusetts regiment on its way through their city. Harper's Weekly printed a full-page series of cartoons showing a grotesquely night-capped and bewhiskered Lincoln sitting up in bed while a lackey shouts: "The Blood tubs are after yer!" Lincoln replies, "Run--no--nev-a-r-r let 'em shoo-o-t." Finally, attired in his Scotch cap and long military cape (misconstrued as a disguise) "Abe" retreats over the back fences. He boards a train which takes him to the White House, where he is presented to President Buchanan by Seward who explains the President-elect's quaking as "a little touch of the ager."

Until the 1860 campaign Lincoln was beardless. In October of that year a little girl wrote him asking for an autograph and advising him that fashion favored beards.* Lincoln replied that he thought it would be "a piece of silly affectation," but on his inauguration day appeared with clumpy black chin whiskers. A cartoon of that day shows a drug store interior with a sign over the door, bearing the legend: "Agency for the Lincoln Whiskeropherous." On a table is a smirking bust of the hirsute "Abr'm."

The druggist points to some jars and says to a young buck: "Try one of these pots, sir, and in three weeks you'll be as hairy and handsome as he is."

The cartoon history was written by Albert Shaw, editor of the Review of Reviews. Author Shaw is an able historical scholar, collector of cartoons, and has already published A Cartoon History of Roosevelt's Career. His work is in two volumes, His Path to the Presidency, The Year of His Election. Half the drawings reproduced in the first book do not deal with Lincoln but show the rude state of caricatures in the early 19th century. Famed men of the day are shown in typical guises, Editor James Gordon Bennett as a woolly, aggressive cur, President Buchanan as an Irish plug-ugly, President William Henry Harrison with his cider barrel. Many a caricaturist saw Lincoln as the embodiment of evil, a crooked juggler, a murderer (in England), a bad boy with "American manners," an afrite (evil genie). Few drew him as he is done today, compassionate, Christlike. The book amply demonstrates that the draftsmanship of the time, while amusing, was almost ghastly in its ineptitude.

*Abraham Lincoln--A Cartoon History by Albert Shaw--Review of Reviews (2 vol. $8). *Dr. Shaw opines that smooth-shaven men of words tended to grow beards when they felt action (the Civil War) approaching.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.