"Time Works Wonders"

Nast stages a bitter irony: Jefferson Davis, dressed as Shakespeare's scheming Iago, lurks stage-left in theatrical costume, visibly tormented. At right, Senator Hiram Revels—labeled at his desk—is sworn in before colleagues in the U.S. Senate chamber. The caption quotes Iago's jealousy speech, casting Davis as the man gnawed by the fact that a Black senator now occupies the Mississippi seat Davis himself once held. Nast's political point is unmistakable: democratic progress is the former Confederate's punishment.