A cynical view of Democratic efforts to pursue a negotiated end to the secession of the Confederate states. Here President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis confronts Brother Jonathan, who stumbles under the enormous burden of a bundle marked "Confederate Debt $650,000,000" and "Federal Debt $1500,000,000" and is further weighed down by the figure of a black man in chains. Davis: "Well Jonathan, if you agree to bear all the expenses of the war, and on top of that let me impose on you the old burden of slavery, while I hold the chain and the whip, I'll put up my weapons for a while and we'll have the 'Union as it was' only a great deal more so." Davis is dressed in a long coat and wide-brimmed hat, with pistols in his pockets. He holds a whip and a chain attached to shackles about the Negro's neck. Jonathan: "Anything my 'erring brother' for the sake of getting our party once more into power; although with this burden to carry the path of peace 'will be a hard road to travel.'"
IIIF Manifest