"The Federal Phoenix," by John Tenniel

The Federal Phoenix

John Tenniel (1820-1914)

3 December 1864

Full page cartoon

Punch, Vol. 47, facing p. 228

Abraham Lincoln had just been re-elected after the "fire" of the Civil War, which had involved the violation of so many rights (see the logs stoking the fiery nest). In this spare and powerful image he seems to have "risen from the ashes" just as the phoenix was said to have done in Greek and Egyptian mythology. Commentary continues below.

Image capture and text by Jacqueline Banerjee.

You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Internet Archive and the Kahle/Austin Foundation, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.

The accompanying verse confirms that this is a "scathing cartoon," showing Punch's typically conservative view of the reelection, i.e., that Lincoln was truly "rising from the ashes of America's civil liberties" (Nigg 459, n. 8).

THE FEDERAL PHOENTX.

When Herodotus, surnamed “The Father of History”
(We are not informed who was History's mother),
Went a travelling to Egypt, that region of mystery,
Where each step presented some marvel or other.

In a great city there, called (in Greek) Heliopolis,
The priests put him in a strange story — rather —
Of a bird, who came up to that priestly metropolis,
Once in five hundred years, to inter its own father.

When to filial feeling apparently callous,
Not a plume ruffled (as we should say, not a hair rent),
In a pot-pourri made of sweet-spice, myrrh, and aloes,
He flagrantly, burnt, after burying, his parent.

But Pomponius Mela has managed to gather
Of this curious story a modified version,
In which the bird burns up itself, not its father,
And soars to new life from its fiery immersion.

This bird has oft figured in emblems and prophecies —
And though SNYDERS ne’er painted its picture, nor WEENIX,
Its portraits on plates of a well-known fire-office is,
Which, after this bird's name, is christened the Phoenix.

Henceforth a new Phoenix, from o'er the Atlantic,
Our old fire-office friend from his brass-plate displaces;
With a plumage of greenbacks, all ruffled, and antic
In OLD ABE’S rueful phiz and OLD ABE’S shambling graces.

As the bird of Arabia wrought resurrection
By a flame all whose virtues grew out of what fed it,
So the Federal Phoenix has earned re-election
By a holocaust huge of rights, commerce, and credit. [228]

Note: Frans Snyders (1579-1657) and Jan Weenix (1642-1719) were (respectively) Flemish and Dutch artists, and the fire-office referred to was the Phoenix fire insurance company in London.

Bibliography

Nigg, Joe. The Phoenix: An Unnatural Biography of a Mythical Beast. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Punch. Vol. 47, 3 December 1864: 228-29. Internet Archive. Contributed by the Khale/Austin Foundation. Web. 5 February 2022.

Created 5 February 2022