"Compromise with the South.—Dedicated to the Chicago Convention."
Published shortly after the Democratic party’s national convention in Chicago in August 1864, where the Peace Democrats succeeded in incorporating a cease-fire and negotiated settlement with the Confederacy into the party’s presidential election platform, this widely-circulated full-page cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper’s Weekly powerfully condemned “compromise with the South” as a betrayal of the honor and sacrifice of Union soldiers with the prospect of the re-enslavement of African Americans (including black soldiers who were by then a significant part of the northern war effort). But shortly after this cartoon’s publication, the tide of war shifted with a string of Union victories, including the capture of Atlanta, contributing to the defeat of Democratic candidate George McClellan (despite his rejection of his own party’s platform) in the fall presidential election.
Creator: Thomas Nast
Date: September 3, 1864
Publisher: Harper's Weekly
Source: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress