1-150-343 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

'Scene From The American Tempest', 1863. Caliban (Sambo) says: You Beat Him 'Nough, Massa! Berry LittleTime, I'll Beat Him Too. - 'Shakespeare. (Nigger Translation.)' Here, Punch depicts a slave receiving a copy of the Proclamation from Lincoln, and vowing to help beat the Southern States, represented by Jefferson Davis, into submission.This cartoon represents the Proclamation issued by President Lincoln at the beginning of January 1863. It declared that 'all persons held as slaves within the Confederate States are and henceforth shall be free. It emphasised the need for emancipated slaves to abstain from violence and to labour faithfully for wages. However, it went on to say that slaves of 'suitable condition' would be received into the armed service of the United States. As Earl Russell commented, the Proclamation omitted to make a statement opposing the principle of slavery, and that the whole document was 'a measure of war, and a measure of war of a very questionable kind'. From Punch, or the London Charivari, January 24, 1863.