"1775 — Another 'Shot Heard Round the World' — 1875"

Nast sets a cannon labeled 1875 atop a globe, its barrel aimed eastward toward Europe. The gun carriage bears a shield inscribed WE STILL LIVE, and a small Capitol dome rises beside it — America as fortress and proof of concept. Above, the American eagle spreads its wings beneath the motto E Pluribus Unum, rays of sunrise fanning behind it. Where the cannonball strikes the far shore, a burst reads THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC — the explosion is democratic idealism itself, still reverberating a century after Lexington. The caption echoes Emerson's 1837 phrase. The cartoon is Nast in a rare triumphalist mode: no Tammany villain, no corrupt boss — just a centennial boast that republican self-government had survived and was still rattling Old World monarchies.