How does the political cartoon relate to secession?

“The ‘Secession Movement’,” a Currier and Ives cartoon dating to 1861, was created in response to the Southern states declaring their withdrawal from the Union. The cartoon represents each state as a man on a donkey, an animal traditionally symbolic of obstinacy.

What was the political spark for Southern secession?

The principal political battle leading to Southern secession was over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into newly acquired Western territory destined to become states. Initially Congress had admitted new states into the Union in pairs, one slave and one free.

Why was the South talking about secession?

The scholars immediately disagreed over the causes of the war and disagreement persists today. Many maintain that the primary cause of the war was the Southern states’ desire to preserve the institution of slavery. Others minimize slavery and point to other factors, such as taxation or the principle of States’ Rights.

Who was involved in the southern secession?

The secession of South Carolina was followed by the secession of six more states—Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas–and the threat of secession by four more—Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These eleven states eventually formed the Confederate States of America.

Did secession cause the Civil War?

Secession, in U.S. history, the withdrawal of 11 slave states (states in which slaveholding was legal) from the Union during 1860–61 following the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. Secession precipitated the American Civil War.

How big was the secession movement in 1861?

Medium: 1 print on wove paper : lithograph ; image 30 x 42 cm. Summary: The movement of several Southern states toward secession in early 1861 is portrayed as a doomed enterprise. The artist shows Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, all represented by men riding donkeys, following the lead of South Carolina toward a cliff.

What was the point of the Nast cartoon?

“ [Nast is] making the point that this is unjust, violence against women and children is terrible, and the nation cannot function when citizens aren’t free,” says historian Fiona Deans Halloran.

Why did Nast draw a cartoon of Johnson and the wounded veteran?

“Shakespeare was widely performed and had been an entertainment staple for Americans for a long time, so it was a set of stories with which Nast assumed his audience would be familiar,” Halloran says. President Johnson and the wounded veteran stand before a backdrop of quotes from Johnson’s speeches.