Sumner Lion

Senator Charles Sumner thrusts his head into a roaring lion's jaws while clutching papers labeled "U.S. Sold to France Arms" and what appears to be a resignation document. Tucked in his coat pocket is a folder marked "Alabama Claims"—the American grievance against Britain for outfitting Confederate raiders during the Civil War. Behind him, Carl Schurz watches with visible alarm. Nast's argument is pointed: Sumner, crusading against Britain's neutrality violations, is simultaneously ignoring America's own breach of neutrality in selling arms to France during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The hypocrisy puts him, lion-tamer-style, in genuine danger.