"Move On!" Has the Native American No Rights That the Naturalized American Is Bound to Respect?

At the center of this wood engraving, a man in a dark coat blocks a Native American man—drawn in the stoic, heavily stylized caricature typical of the era, wearing traditional dress and holding a rifle—from approaching a polling station marked THE POLLS. Behind the barrier, a crowd of white men, Black men, and immigrants in top hats jostle freely to vote. The caption's echo of Dred Scott's infamous phrasing is deliberate and pointed. Nast, usually the champion of Reconstruction-era Black voting rights, here extends that argument: if naturalized immigrants and freedmen may vote, the exclusion of Native Americans is a raw contradiction. The irony is double-edged—the same republic absorbing waves of European immigrants denies the franchise to the continent's original inhabitants.