Jefferson Davis steals from Uncle Sam in this illustration.
Harper’s Weekly
On June 1, 1861, Harper’s Weekly published this cartoon mocking Jefferson Davis and, by extension, the nascent Confederacy he led as president. Davis is depicted as a thief in the night, his attempt to steal property from a house interrupted by its owner Uncle Sam.
Among Davis’ bounty is Fort Sumter, which had fallen to Confederate bombardment six weeks earlier, and a lighthouse, a reference to the seizure and darkening of federal lighthouses in southern states as a means to thwart operations by the Union navy. “Hallo there, you Rascal!” says an angry Uncle Sam in an accompanying caption. “[W]here are you going with my Property, eh?” Davis, almost out the door, replies, “Oh, dear Uncle! ALL I WANT IS TO BE LET ALONE!”—a play on a phrase he famously used in an April 29 address to the Confederate Congress, in which he justified secession and accused the newly elected Lincoln administration of acting aggressively and in bad faith.
Harper’s Weekly was one of many northern publications to highlight what was considered the hypocrisy of southern actions and words: forcefully seizing federal forts and property while publicly calling for a peaceful separation from the United States.
