"Compromise with the South"

Everyone wants peace in Ukraine. But how it is achieved makes all the difference.

As in 2025, astonishing change roiled the United States in 1864.

As in 2025, the change in 1864 involved war.

As in 2025, the question in 1864 was whether those who had fought and bled and suffered for so long in a noble war — a just war — should accept that they could not prevail and negotiate peace with their enemy.

In 1864, the war was the Civil War.

By the first half of that year, the war had dragged on through three years of slaughter on a scale not seen since Napoleon ravaged Europe. But still there was no end in sight. Growing numbers of Americans concluded the war was a stalemate that couldn’t be broken. For them, the conclusion was obvious. North and the South must negotiate a peace treaty.

Abraham Lincoln urged the Union to fight on. But it was Lincoln’s election four years earlier that had tipped the South into rebellion and the grinding attrition meant Lincoln was widely expected to lose re-election in November. Lincoln himself was certain he was finished. He told friends so in private.

Lincoln’s Democratic opponent was George McClellan, which was bitterly ironic for Lincoln as McClellan was the general he had fired after McClellan’s extreme caution allowed the Confederacy to avoid a swift and decisive blow early in the war. The only advantage Lincoln had was clarity. A vote for Lincoln was a vote to fight on. The Democrats were badly divided, with some calling for an immediate negotiated peace, others wanting to keep fighting if only to strengthen the Union’s hand in negotiations, while still others called for war with no negotiation. In the end, the Democratic platform called for the immediate negotiation of peace while the candidate supported continued war.

Needless to say, Lincoln’s supporters drew a sharper line, portraying all Democrats as supporters of capitulation.

On September 3, 1864, Harper’s Weekly published what became one of the most famous and influential editorial cartoons in American history.

The artist was Thomas Nast, who was still young and little-known, but would become a giant in the second half of the 19th century. This image helped vault him to fame.

It is not subtle.

Under a heading of “Compromise with the South,” we see a one-legged Union solder on crutches, his head bowed in shame, his face hidden to the viewer, shaking hands with a proud Confederate who holds a whip in his left hand. Behind the Confederate, a black family waits on their knees, their hands shackled. The Confederate’s boot rests on the grave of a Union soldier. A tombstone reads, “In Memory of our Union Heroes who died in a Useless War.” A young woman weeps over the grave, her hands covering her face. She is Columbia, the standard symbol of America in that era.

If that wasn’t clear enough, Nast literally spells out the consequences of the peace treaty on an upside-down Union flag and a Confederate flag. “Slavery,” it says on the Confederate flag. “Treason. Guerrilla warfare. Barbarities. Yankee killers.” And there are more pointed references, including “Fort Pillow.” That refers to a battle fought that April. The battle turned into a massacre when victorious Confederate troops led by Nathan Bedford Forrest — later the first Grand Wizard of the original Ku Klux Klan — butchered black and white prisoners.

Beneath the whole tableau, it reads “dedicated to the Chicago convention” — a sardonic nod to the Democratic convention in Chicago, which has just chosen McClellan for president.

This is the future that awaits if McClellan wins the election, Thomas Nast warned America.

The cartoon was a sensation. Compromise with the South was reproduced in vast quantity as ardent supporters of Lincoln framed it and hung it on walls across the North.

Of course George McClellan did not win, in large part because, at the very moment Thomas Nast’s cartoon was rolling off the printing press, Atlanta was falling to Union forces. The great battlefield breakthrough that had so long eluded Lincoln was underway.

Lincoln won the election of 1864 with 55 percent of the vote.

No two events in history are alike. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not the American Civil War.

But Zelenskyy’s war is as just as Lincoln’s. Ukrainians have suffered as Americans suffered. And the war grinds on, year after year, with no end in sight, as the American war ground on.

I won’t keep pushing the analogy.

Few wars are fought until one side unconditionally surrenders. Most come to a negotiated end. Given the massive advantages Russia started its criminal assault with, it is a testament to the courage and tenacity of Ukrainians — and the moral clarity among Western supporters of Ukraine — that it didn’t end in total Russian victory years ago. But barring a collapse of the regime in the Kremlin, this war cannot end in outright Ukrainian victory, as morally satisfying as such a conclusion would be. The end will be negotiated.

But “negotiation” is a blanket term that obscures more than it reveals.

A negotiated end to this horrid war could be wise and honourable, if it does not reward Russia’s aggression, if it provides some measure of reparations, and if it ensures Ukraine’s future security. But a negotiated end that sells Ukraine down the river — to use a Civil War-era metaphor — could be the most grotesque betrayal since America Firsters demanded the United States stand back and let Adolf Hitler snuff out freedom in Europe.

This is why it is disgusting when Trumpians wrap themselves in the mantle of peace and call those who support Ukraine’s fight “warmongers.” No one wants war. Everyone wants peace. But how peace is achieved makes all the difference.

Seen that way, recent developments are grim. Day by day, a “wise and honourable” negotiated peace is fading from view while the world creeps closer to a negotiated surrender as odious and craven as that depicted in Compromise with the South.

The man responsible is, of course, Donald J. Trump.

President Bonespurs never served in uniform, of course, but in at least one sense he is oddly similar to George McClellan. Both project the image of strength, vigour, and decisiveness. Both relish that image. But in reality, both are weak. And others suffer for their weakness.

After repeatedly bragging during the campaign that it would be “easy” to end the war “in a day,” Trump is desperate for the war to end so he can claim a personal victory and demand his Nobel peace prize. This desperation, along with ideological affinity, explains why Trump has effectively agreed to all Vladimir Putin’s key demands in exchange for … nothing.

And that was just the beginning.

Trump negotiates with Russia behind the back of Ukraine and Europe. His Secretary of State burbles about the “exciting” geopolitical and economic deals to come with Russia. Meanwhile, Trump vilifies Europe for continuing to back Ukraine and he savages Volodymyr Zelenskyy by repeating Kremlin propaganda — that Zelenskyy is a “dictator,” that he has only four percent support, that Ukraine is responsible for the war. And no one will ever forget the way Trump and J.D. Vance went at Zelenskyy like schoolyard bullies. It was one of the most shameful moments in Oval Office history.

As if that weren't enough, Trump ordered all American support for Ukraine halted, both military and not, so even medical aid has stopped. He cut off American intelligence, including warnings of incoming Russian missile attacks. He withdrew permission for Ukraine to use certain US-provided weapons. You can read the details of America’s betrayal here.

The bottom line is that Trump is making it much easier for Russia to attack Ukraine in the expectation that more dead Ukrainians, and the prospect of worse to come, will compel Zelenskyy to sign whatever travesty he and Putin cook up. All Russia’s war crimes unpunished. No reparations from Russia. Ukraine’s land stolen by Russia. Ukraine’s minerals snatched by the United States. And no security guarantees — so Putin can simply rearm and finish the job later.

Donald Trump has switched sides and put a gun to Zelenskyy’s head. Soon Zelenskyy will be told to sign a “negotiated” deal.

If the bullying of Zelenskyy was one of the most shameful moments in Oval Office history, the betrayal of Ukraine is surely one of the most shameful moments in American history.

Fortunately, Europe has responded to Trump’s betrayal by loudly and aggressively stepping up support for Ukraine. And across the continent, Europe is launching an unprecedented rearmament campaign to strengthen Ukraine, Europe, and liberal democracy itself.

The Europeans understand that Ukraine is the frontline in the defence of liberal democracy. And they understand that the United States of America, history’s great champion of liberal democracy, is now led by an authoritarian traitor to all the United States has ever stood for.

Now, look at Thomas Nast’s 1864 cartoon again.

Imagine Vladimir Putin with a whip in his left hand.

We are horrifyingly close to that moment.

Now is the time for all who understand what liberal democracy is, what it has done for humanity, what more it could do, to rally. Now is the time to stand with Ukraine — and fight the traitor in the White House.