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History of the Democratic Donkey
When Andrew Jackson ran for president in 1828, his opponents tried to label him a "jackass"
for his populist views and his slogan, "Let the people rule." Jackson, however, picked up
on their name calling and turned it to his own advantage by using the donkey on his campaign posters.
During his presidency, the donkey was used to represent Jackson's stubbornness when he vetoed
re-chartering the National Bank.
The first time the donkey was used in a political cartoon to represent the Democratic party, it
was again in conjunction with Jackson. Although in 1837 Jackson was retired, he still thought of
himself as the Party's leader and was shown trying to get the donkey to go where he wanted it to go.
The cartoon was titled "A Modern Baalim and his Ass."
Interestingly enough, the person credited with getting the donkey widely accepted as the
Democratic party's symbol probably had no knowledge of the prior associations.
Thomas Nast, a famous political
cartoonist, came to the United States with his parents in 1840 when he was six. He first used the
donkey in an 1870 Harper's Weekly cartoon to represent the "Copperhead Press" kicking a
dead lion, symbolizing Lincoln's Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who had recently died. Nast
intended the donkey to represent an anti-war faction with whom he disagreed, but the symbol
caught the public's fancy and the cartoonist continued using it to indicate some Democratic editors
and newspapers.
Later, Nast used the donkey to portray what he called "Caesarism" showing the alleged Democratic
uneasiness over a possible third term for Ulysses S. Grant. In conjunction with this issue, Nast
helped associate the elephant with the Republican party.  Although the elephant had
been connected with the Republican party in cartoons that appeared in 1860 and 1872, it was Nast's
cartoon in 1874 published by Harper’s Weekly that made the pachyderm stick as the Republican's symbol.
A cartoon titled "The Third Term Panic," showed animals representing various issues running
away from a donkey wearing a lion's skin tagged "Caesarism." The elephant labeled "The
Republican Vote," was about to run into a pit containing inflation, chaos, repudiation, etc.
By 1880 the donkey was well established as a mascot for the Democratic party. A cartoon about
the Garfield-Hancock campaign in the New York Daily Graphic showed the Democratic candidate mounted
on a donkey, leading a procession of crusaders.
Over the years, the donkey and the elephant have become the accepted symbols of the Democratic
and Republican parties. Although the Democrats have never officially adopted the donkey as a party
symbol, we have used various donkey designs on publications over the years. The Republicans have
actually adopted the elephant as their official symbol and use their design widely. The Democrats
think of the elephant as bungling, stupid, pompous and conservative -- but the Republicans think it
is dignified, strong and intelligent. On the other hand, the Republicans regard the donkey as stubborn,
silly and ridiculous -- but the Democrats claim it is humble, homely, smart, courageous and loveable.
Adlai Stevenson provided one of the most clever descriptions of the Republican's symbol when
he said, "The elephant has a thick skin, a head full of ivory, and as everyone who has seen a
circus parade knows, proceeds best by grasping the tail of its predecessor."
Source: www.democrats.org
“Democrats today say the donkey is smart and brave,
while Republicans say the elephant is strong and dignified.”
Thank you for your support.
of Greene County
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GREENE COUNTY DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE
Chairman: