"A Truce — Not a Compromise"

Two clasped hands — one gripping a revolver — press down on a scatter of inflammatory broadsides: "Tilden or Blood," "Civil War," "Are You Ready for Civil War?" and a pamphlet invoking the KKK. The printed caption, set beneath the image in small type, reads: A truce — not a compromise, but a chance for high-toned gentlemen to retire gracefully from their very civil declarations of war. Nast's target is the violent Democratic rhetoric surrounding the disputed 1876 Hayes–Tilden election. Tilden partisans had threatened armed revolt if their candidate was denied the presidency; Nast frames their "reform" posturing as a pistol-backed bluff. The composition offers no ethnic caricature — the argument is purely political, skewering hotheaded newspaper agitators and party bosses who wrapped insurrectionary threats in genteel language.