Ignis Fatuus

A neoclassical building — the White House, its pediment inscribed 1880 — glows ghost-white from the center of a dark swamp, its reflection shimmering in stagnant water. Cattails and marsh reeds crowd the foreground; bats wheel through a sky lit only by a crescent moon and a single star. No human figures appear. The Latin title means will-o'-the-wisp, the marsh gas that lures travelers to their deaths by mimicking solid ground. Nast's argument is pointed: the presidency in 1880 is a dangerous illusion, a false light rising from corrupt political mire. Published two years before the election, the cartoon warns — likely at Grant's rumored third-term ambitions or Reconstruction's collapsing promises — that chasing that glowing prize leads only into the swamp.