“The Presidential party was engaged in a lively exchange of wit and humor. The President-elect was the merriest among the merry and kept those around him in a continual roar.”—Daily Paper.
Now, let it be borne in mind that this very suggestive piece of malice was published just on the eve of Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration at Washington, whose atmosphere was black with lowering clouds of rebellion, where threats were rife that he would never take his seat in the Presidential chair, and where men’s minds were already warped and inflamed by misrepresentations and falsehoods concerning him, the belief in which by a large portion of the community would seriously blunt any sharp opprobrium of murder, and soften down assassination to the meritorious taking off of an unworthy drunken demagogue. If the conductors of this organ of “civilization” are capable of giving the greatest publicity to a horrible caricature on such a subject, and at a moment fraught with such dreadful contingencies, need there be any room for surprise that they do not stickle at far worse when the subjects of their defamation are “only Catholics”?
ANOTHER PICTURE.
But we have not yet done with this number of March 2. It was the strongest bid of the journal for Southern favor and patronage. On the same page with the cut we have described is another, a more elaborate, more artistic, and better executed picture. Scene: Interior of a church—pews full of worshippers—minister officiating—administration of the sacrament. At the chancel railing kneels George Washington. With one hand, the clergyman standing in the sanctuary holds away the cup from the would-be communicant, and with the other contemptuously waves him off. The Father of his Country makes a gesture of indignant remonstrance, while the minister’s assistant with a long stick points to
a tablet in the wall, on which are engraved the words:
The Higher Law.
No Communion with Slaveholders.
Is the reader edified? There is more to come. The officiating minister is Henry Ward Beecher—an unmistakable portrait. His assistant is John Brown—an excellent likeness—and the pointer he uses is one of the well-known “Harper’s Ferry Pikes.” Under the engraving we read:
No Communion with Slaveholders.
“Stand aside, you Old Sinner! We are holier than thou.”