Let Us Have Complete Restoration, While You Are About It

Nast stages the argument inside what appears to be the Capitol chamber, where a large, self-important figure—meant to represent Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts—holds forth while surrounding petitioners thrust documents at him. A one-legged Union veteran on crutches, a widow in mourning dress, and a small boy present bills reading "Restore" and "Record of the Rebellion"; a basket at right overflows with competing legislation. The engraved caption mocks Sumner's December 2 bill to erase all Civil War battle names from U.S. flags and Army registers—a Reconstruction-era olive branch Nast found obscene. His argument: while maimed soldiers and bereaved families still beg for basic relief, Sumner performs magnanimity toward ex-Confederates by erasing the Union's hard-won military record. The figures carry no notable ethnic caricature; the satire runs entirely on ironic contrast between grandstanding oratory and unmet human cost.