fugitive by using one of Nast's cartoons. Party politics Nast was the first journalist who did not own his newspaper to play a major role in shaping public opinion. His cartoons were influential in deciding five Presidential elections: Abraham Lincoln (1864); Ulysses S. Grant (1868 and 1872); Rutherford B. Hayes (1876); — all Republicans — and Democrat Grover Cleveland (1884). His biting cartoons ridiculed the losers: George B. McClellan (1864); Horatio Seymour (1868); Horace Greeley (1872); Samuel J. Tilden (1876); and James G. Blaine (1884). Nast effectively sat out the 1880 election because he distrusted Republican James A. Garfield (who won) and admired Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock, a Civil War hero and Nast’s personal friend. In addition to his talent, creativity and the repetitive impact of his cartoons, Nast benefited from his lack of meaningful competition before Puck arrived in 1877, and from the financial strength, editorial consistency and reach of Harper’s Weekly. America’s leading illustrated newspaper’s circulation was about 120,000 during the Civil War, 200,000 during subsequent Presidential elections, and almost 300,000 during the height of the Tweed campaign. With passalong readership, Nast’s audience reached 500,000 to more than a million viewers. The single most important and influential cartoon that Nast ever drew appeared in Harper’s Weekly on August 24, 1864 (post-dated September 3) as the Democratic National Committee was assembling in Chicago to nominate McClellan (whom Lincoln had fired as his top Union general two years earlier) for President. “Compromise with the South — Dedicated to the Chicago Convention” captured the very crux of the existential emotional and political stake at issue in the forthcoming election. Nast’s scathing caricature featured an arrogant, exultant Jefferson Davis shaking hands with a crippled Union soldier who — with his head bowed and his only leg shackled to a ball and chain — humbly accepted it. Columbia, representing the Union and modeled by Nast’s wife Sallie, wept at the gravestone marked “In Memory of Our Union Heroes Who Fell in a Useless War.” As Davis’s boot stomped on a Union grave and broke the sword of Northern Power, the cat-o’-nine-tails in his left hand was ready to flog his vanquished enemies. A Black family in chains despaired behind Davis. The Union flag, upside down in distress, recited it successes, including emancipation, on its stripes; the Confederate flag detailed a list of atrocities. On October 16 — almost eight weeks after Nast’s cartoon