Compromise With the South

Nast drew this broadside against the 1864 Democratic platform, which called the Civil War a failure and sought negotiated peace with the Confederacy. The composition frames two labeled zones—NORTH and SOUTH—beneath an arch reading Compromise with the South / Dedicated to the Chicago Convention. At center, a crippled Union veteran leans on a crutch, shaking hands across a tombstone with a confident Confederate officer whose belt buckle reads CSA and whose sword rests at the ready. The stone reads In Memory of Union Heroes who fell in a Useless War—the Democratic platform's own logic turned into an epitaph. Columbia kneels weeping at the grave. On the left, a burning American flag; on the right, a Confederate battle flag lists Southern atrocities. Background figures, depicting formerly enslaved people returned to subjugation, carry the implied cost of compromise: re-enslavement dressed as peace.