Time Works Wonders

Nast sets a bitter Jefferson Davis as Shakespeare's Iago—skulking in woman's dress at left, gnawed by jealousy—while Hiram Revels, the first Black U.S. Senator, takes his seat at the Mississippi desk. The caption quotes Iago's speech about suspecting 'the lusty Moor,' inverting the slur: Davis is now the poisoned schemer, Revels the dignified occupant. Senators Wilson, Morton, Schurz, and Sumner look on approvingly. Davis's feminized, haggard costume is deliberate mockery—Nast routinely emasculated defeated enemies. Revels is drawn with less exaggeration than Nast sometimes applied to Black figures, reflecting Radical Republican admiration; the desk nameplate asserts his legitimacy plainly. Published weeks after Revels's swearing-in, the cartoon frames Reconstruction's promise as poetic justice against the Confederacy's president.