"Halt!" — Thomas Nast, 1874

Lady Justice — blindfolded, sword drawn, scales at her feet — confronts an armed White League militiaman who stands over the prostrate body of a Black man, rendered in the broad caricature typical of the era's illustrated press. A banner reading WHITE MEN'S LEAGUE flies behind the gunmen. The caption quotes the stated justification of Reconstruction-era white supremacist groups — to impose "honest and orderly government" — and Nast demolishes it: this is murder dressed as reform. The cartoon responds directly to the Coushatta and Colfax massacres in Louisiana, where paramilitary groups slaughtered Black voters and Republican officeholders. Justice's command — Halt! — indicts not only the killers but a federal government retreating from Reconstruction's promises.