Franchise. And Not This Man?

Published months after the Civil War's end, this wood engraving frames its argument as a moral confrontation. A Black Union veteran—rendered with the broad facial exaggeration common to period illustration, though here deployed sympathetically—stands on crutches, hat in hand, wearing his service uniform. Beside him, a robed female figure representing the Republic rests her hand on his shoulder and gestures toward a ballot box on a raised platform draped in stars and stripes. The caption beneath reads: Franchise. And not this man? The rhetorical question is Nast's point entire: a man who bled for the nation is being denied the vote while others receive it. The image entered print during fierce Reconstruction debates over the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, pushing directly for Black male suffrage.