The 1860 Presidential Election

The presidential elections of 1860 was one of the nation’s most memorable one. The north and the south sections of country had a completely different vision of how they envision their home land. What made this worst was that their view was completely opposite of each other. The north, mostly republican supporters, want America to be free; free of slaves and free from bondages. While on the other hand, the south supporters, mostly democratic states, wanted slavery in the country, because this is what they earned their daily living and profit from.

The separation of the south and north was not the only separation the United States was going through, the Democratic Party had split. The northern and southern democrats turn on each other. After several delegates walk out of the democratic convention, Douglas, who was not supposed to be put up as a nomination for president because he would not support the idea to make all states have slaves, was nominated for president. After the fact that Douglas was nominated without the entire Democratic Party consent, the southern democrats nominated John C. Breckinridge, who believed that all the states should have slavery, thus a split in the Democratic Party. (Foner,496)

In the political cartoon 5A, the first reaction you have is to laugh without knowing the deeper meaning behind it, and I guess that’s most people reaction if they don’t read the captions. In my opinion this cartoon represent two events of our country’s history, the “Democratic Split” and “The Nomination of Lincoln”. The main characters in this political cartoon are Abraham Lincoln, Douglas, and John C. Breckinridge. The chief symbols in this cartoon is the two rodents that’s split at the tail. Another chief symbol is the way Abraham Lincoln is carrying the two rodents on a stick, like they are very poisonous and the need to be gotten rid of. The split tail rodents represent the Democratic Party and how they are breaking apart and not working together. It represents how the Democratic Party is corrupt. The way the “Old Abe” is carry these two rodents is how anyone in NYC today reacts to the rats in the subway station, ‘They need to get rid of’; and that is what I think the artist of the cartoon was trying to portray, that Abraham Lincoln had to get rid of the pest that’s corrupting our nation.

The political cartoon 5A is supporting Abraham Lincoln, it is portraying Abraham Lincoln as the hero and Douglas and John C.