Collage of historical images and cartoons of the American Civil War

Visual Culture of the American Civil WarA Special Feature of Picturing US History

Union and Liberty! and Union and Slavery!

This pro-Republican wood engraving from the 1864 presidential campaign was directed to working-class northerners, contrasting the North's free labor system with the South's chattel slavery. On the left, Lincoln shakes hands with a skilled worker (who wears the symbolic artisan hat and carries tools) in front of a group of black and white children emerging from a schoolhouse—an unusual endorsement of racial equality during the campaign. On the right, Democratic candidate George McClellan cooperates with Confederate President Jefferson Davis as a slave auction occurs in the background.This pro-Republican wood engraving from the 1864 presidential campaign was directed to working-class northerners, contrasting the North's free labor system with the South's chattel slavery. On the left, Lincoln shakes hands with a skilled worker (who wears the symbolic artisan hat and carries tools) in front of a group of black and white children emerging from a schoolhouse—an unusual endorsement of racial equality during the campaign. On the right, Democratic candidate George McClellan cooperates with Confederate President Jefferson Davis as a slave auction occurs in the background.

Physical Dimensions: 10.3 x 20.5 in.

Source: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Publisher: New York: M. W. Siebert

Date: 1864