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Punch Civil War Wood Engraved Cartoon

"'CAESAR IMPERATOR!' OR, THE AMERICAN GLADIATORS"
 May 18, 1861

In this cartoon two gladiators are pictured, the North on the left and the South on the right with a crowd of Blacks watching the fight on bales of cotton with one seated like Caesar between bales with a staff in his hand. This cartoon, like the earlier one makes clear that slavery is the central issue in the Civil War. The added feature here is the cotton bales, but slavery was believed to be necessary to make cotton economical to grow in the South, and cotton was more on the minds of the British after the Union announced its intention to blockade all of the Southern ports.

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