Jeff Davis, On His Own Platform
At the Civil War's outset, the Confederacy was confident that revenues from the sale of southern cotton would sustain its struggle for independence. Northerners, however, thought otherwise as reflected in the following poem, which speaks to the context of this cartoon showing President Jefferson Davis with a rope around his neck.
Jeff Davis boasts that "Cotton's King;"
Upon his throne's so written;
But he'll soon find, when on his swing,
That Hemp is King of Cotton.

Currier & Ives Lithography Company (active 1857–1907)
Lithograph, circa 1861
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

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