At the time, Republican Ulysses S. Grant had served two terms as president and was considering running for a third. In the cartoon, a donkey wearing a lion's skin labeled "Caeserism" frightens off ...

Grant as a potential American dictator. In Nast’s donkey-in-lion’s-clothing cartoon, the elephant –representing the Republican vote– was running scared toward a pit of chaos and inflation.

The cartoon, titled “The Third Term Panic,” showed a donkey (representing the Herald and the Democratic press) wearing a lion’s skin (labeled “Caesarism") to frighten a group of animals.

Although running for a third term was not illegal ... and the elephant symbol was not beyond criticism in his cartoons. The donkey and elephant symbols continue to be significant in U.S. elections ...

It started with Andrew Jackson, running for office way back in 1828 ... and in the next two decades he would return to the donkey again and again. In another memorable cartoon, he represented the ...