Lincoln on Home Base
Beginning in the 1820s, the language and imagery of sports penetrated politics, cutting across the lines of class and party. Wielding a long, bat-like rail labeled “EQUAL RIGHTS AND FREE TERRITORY,” Abraham Lincoln holds a baseball and appears ready to score a victory in the election. His three opponents — from left to right, John Bell (the candidate of a new Constitutional Union Party), Stephen A. Douglas, and John C. Breckinridge — will soon be “out.” Indeed, according to the pro-Lincoln cartoonist, they were about to be “skunk’d.” As Douglas laments, their attempt to put a “short stop” to Lincoln’s presidential ambitions had failed. Museum of American Political Life.