"This Little Boy Would Persist in Handling Books Above His Capacity"

A two-panel plate skewering President Andrew Johnson. Left: a caricatured figure—rendered with the bulbous-headed, stubby proportions Nast applied to politicians he despised—stands on a library ladder straining to pull down a massive volume labeled Constitution of U.S. The caption reads, This Little Boy Would Persist in Handling Books Above His Capacity. Right: the ladder has toppled, the Constitution lies fallen on the floor crushing the figure beneath it, captioned And This Was the Disastrous Result. Nast's argument is pointed: Johnson, vetoing Reconstruction legislation and claiming constitutional authority, is not a statesman wielding the law but a vain child destroyed by his own overreach. The Constitution punishes the man who misreads it.