"political tricksters" who, by staging the meeting, had wrongly attempted to usurp recognized authority.
Legal redress was denied, but the riot's savagery was widely reported, raising concern that President Johnson's version of Reconstruction was insufficiently tough and that stronger federal sanctions were required. Thomas Nast lambasted the president in a cartoon entitled "Amphi-theatrum JohnsonianumâMassacre of the Innocents at New Orleans, July 30, 1866." It portrayed Johnson as a Roman emperor seated with other recognizable national leaders in their box at "the Coliseum," watching indifferently as, in the arena below, Mayor Monroe's rebels slaughter the Louisiana Republicans.
The riots in Memphis and New Orleans confirmed for many Americans that "the rebel spirit," though momentarily quashed, was far from dead, and that Southerners, in the absence of slavery, would not hesitate to use extreme violence to maintain supremacy over blacks. Such expressions of fear and resentment would be rekindled easily and often in the Reconstruction South in the coming years. But in the short term "New Orleans!" became the Republican rallying cry, dramatizing the need for severe restraint on former Confederates while creating greater sympathy for Southern freedmen.
In August 1866, with the nation's editorial pages still humming over New Orleans, the president embarked on a circuitous journey through the American heartland, aimed at bolstering his personal image and garnering public support in the run-up to the fall congressional elections. This trip, which became known as the "Swing Around the Circle," included members of Johnson's cabinet, a substantial press corps, and a
glittering entourage of heroes meant to set off the president favorablyâGenerals Ulysses'S. Grant and George A. Custer, as well as Admiral David Farragut, the naval hero celebrated for capturing New Orleans in 1862 and Mobile in 1864, where he had famously cried, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" Grant, beloved as "the Man on Horseback" or "the Man with the Black Cigar," was widely credited with winning the Civil War and was hugely popular; many assumed he would soon be president. Custer, with his long yellow curls, thick mustache, and a red bandanna worn as a cravat, was the most dashing military figure of the day. The year before, at a homecoming parade in Washington, he had caught a hurled bouquet on the point of his sword, to thunderous cheers from the crowd.
The framing device for what would become one of the most ill-starred presidential speaking tours in American history was a visit to the gravesite of Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who had died in 1861. Making the memorialization of Douglas the excursion's theme was a strange choice. A blustering politico renowned for debating Lincoln over slavery, "the Little Giant" was also the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which in 1854 granted not Congress, but rather the settlers in the new western territories, the right to decide whether a given territory would be slave or freeâa bitterly controversial piece of legislation whose passage helped bring on the Civil War. Now the war's outcome had rendered Douglas's views, and his legacy, mostly irrelevant. "Although [he] died five years ago, he seems to have been dead for half a century," wrote one Northern editor. The absurdity of Johnson's homage to Douglas made for some bizarre moments en route, such as when the presidential train slowed near the home of Douglas's elderly mother in upstate New York so that Johnson and Grant could doff their hats from the rear platform as she watched from a chair on her porch.
The tour did not start altogether badly. Johnson's message of national unity and reconciliation carried him through several East Coast appearancesâBaltimore, Philadelphia, New York Cityâbut as the train steamed west, the crowded schedule, the almost identical words spoken at every station, and the crush of local
Legal redress was denied, but the riot's savagery was widely reported, raising concern that President Johnson's version of Reconstruction was insufficiently tough and that stronger federal sanctions were required. Thomas Nast lambasted the president in a cartoon entitled "Amphi-theatrum JohnsonianumâMassacre of the Innocents at New Orleans, July 30, 1866." It portrayed Johnson as a Roman emperor seated with other recognizable national leaders in their box at "the Coliseum," watching indifferently as, in the arena below, Mayor Monroe's rebels slaughter the Louisiana Republicans.
The riots in Memphis and New Orleans confirmed for many Americans that "the rebel spirit," though momentarily quashed, was far from dead, and that Southerners, in the absence of slavery, would not hesitate to use extreme violence to maintain supremacy over blacks. Such expressions of fear and resentment would be rekindled easily and often in the Reconstruction South in the coming years. But in the short term "New Orleans!" became the Republican rallying cry, dramatizing the need for severe restraint on former Confederates while creating greater sympathy for Southern freedmen.
In August 1866, with the nation's editorial pages still humming over New Orleans, the president embarked on a circuitous journey through the American heartland, aimed at bolstering his personal image and garnering public support in the run-up to the fall congressional elections. This trip, which became known as the "Swing Around the Circle," included members of Johnson's cabinet, a substantial press corps, and a
glittering entourage of heroes meant to set off the president favorablyâGenerals Ulysses'S. Grant and George A. Custer, as well as Admiral David Farragut, the naval hero celebrated for capturing New Orleans in 1862 and Mobile in 1864, where he had famously cried, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" Grant, beloved as "the Man on Horseback" or "the Man with the Black Cigar," was widely credited with winning the Civil War and was hugely popular; many assumed he would soon be president. Custer, with his long yellow curls, thick mustache, and a red bandanna worn as a cravat, was the most dashing military figure of the day. The year before, at a homecoming parade in Washington, he had caught a hurled bouquet on the point of his sword, to thunderous cheers from the crowd.
The framing device for what would become one of the most ill-starred presidential speaking tours in American history was a visit to the gravesite of Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who had died in 1861. Making the memorialization of Douglas the excursion's theme was a strange choice. A blustering politico renowned for debating Lincoln over slavery, "the Little Giant" was also the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which in 1854 granted not Congress, but rather the settlers in the new western territories, the right to decide whether a given territory would be slave or freeâa bitterly controversial piece of legislation whose passage helped bring on the Civil War. Now the war's outcome had rendered Douglas's views, and his legacy, mostly irrelevant. "Although [he] died five years ago, he seems to have been dead for half a century," wrote one Northern editor. The absurdity of Johnson's homage to Douglas made for some bizarre moments en route, such as when the presidential train slowed near the home of Douglas's elderly mother in upstate New York so that Johnson and Grant could doff their hats from the rear platform as she watched from a chair on her porch.
The tour did not start altogether badly. Johnson's message of national unity and reconciliation carried him through several East Coast appearancesâBaltimore, Philadelphia, New York Cityâbut as the train steamed west, the crowded schedule, the almost identical words spoken at every station, and the crush of local
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