Schurz Conspirators

Nast stages a scene from Julius Caesar on the Washington Mall, the White House visible at left and the Capitol dome at right. Six Liberal Republican senators—Carl Schurz, Reuben Fenton, an unidentified figure, Lyman Trumbull, Charles Sumner, and Thomas Tipton—huddle in Roman togas and sandals, conspiring in hushed tones. At far left, Horace Greeley, cast as Cicero, reads a paper scroll, oblivious to the plotters sizing him up as a useful recruit. The classical costume is satirical: these were respectable men planning to bolt the Republican Party and deny Grant a second term. Nast, a fierce Grant loyalist, frames their reform movement as pure Shakespearean treachery—senators as assassins, Greeley as the vain orator they would use and discard.