The festival at Puri, India, celebrating Juggernaut (“Jagannath” in Sanskrit), a large incarnation of the Hindu god, Krishna, involves thousands of participants pulling a huge statue of the deity through the streets on a chariot. After first encountering the event, Europeans claimed that some religiously fervid worshippers threw themselves into the path of the Juggernaut, which crushed them to death. In the mid-nineteenth century, the word “Juggernaut” began being used metaphorically to mean a powerful force that runs over anything in its path.

With the military situation not going as well as hoped for the Union in early 1864, there was considerable talk that President Abraham Lincoln could not win reelection. However, in this New York Illustrated News cartoon, the president appears as a sleeping giant whose big shoes will be difficult to fill, despite the efforts of tiny “presidential cobblers and wire-pullers.”

Like its Liberal counterpart, Fun, the Conservative-leaning British humor magazine Punch (1841-1992, 1996-2002) relentlessly criticized the administration of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and the Union war effort.

This ominous cartoon appeared in Fun, the British humor magazine, after Abraham Lincoln’s reelection. The president is depicted as a vengeful warmonger whose prosecution of the Civil War has resulted in extensive loss of life for no apparent gain to the nation.

In this cartoon from Fun, a British humor magazine, John Bright shakes hands with President Abraham Lincoln, who appears as a militaristic half-wit stepping on the U.S. Constitution. Bright was a Liberal member of parliament and leading reformer whose Quaker religious beliefs (note his Quaker hat) provoked his intense aversion to slavery. During the American Civil War, he was an outspoken supporter of the Lincoln administration and the Union cause, although his pacifism prevented him from calling for British military intervention on the side of the Union.

This cartoon from Fun depicts President Abraham Lincoln as Mazeppa, a 17th-century Cossack general, being carried by a galloping horse “to the ruins.” Fun was a British humor magazine (1861-1901) favoring the Liberal Party. However, on the issue of the American Civil War it joined Conservative rival Punch to express sympathy for the Confederate cause and opposition to the Union war effort.

In this cartoon from pro-Confederate Southern Punch, President Abraham Lincoln is a public school cook distributing federal patronage in order to prevent supporters from supporting the Democrats (“Chicago”) and Radical Republicans (“Cleveland”) during the 1864 election. Secretary of State William Henry Seward tries to prevent Lincoln from feeding New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, who in 1860 helped Lincoln defeat Seward for the Republican presidential nomination. Here, Greeley looks up in anticipation from under the arm of Lincoln.

Launched in Richmond, Virginia, in 1863, Southern Punch was intended to be an American (and pro-Confederate) version of the popular and influential British humor magazine, Punch. This simple cartoon shows a relaxed and overly confident “Abe Lincoln flattering himself on his chance of Re-election.” The president is joined in the scene by a black man who is probably meant to represent a servant. Lincoln’s self-absorption and disregard for those around him allows the black servant to rest from his duties and casually read a newspaper.

The second in a series of anti-Lincoln satires by Bromley & Co.

Another in the series of anti-Lincoln prints from Bromley & Co. Here, Lincoln’s support of abolition is portrayed as a liability in his race to the White House against Democratic candidate George B. McClellan.