Elephants

It all started while Ulysses S. Grant (a Republican) was serving his second term as President. During the mid-term elections in 1874, Grant was accused of “Caesarism” by the New York Herald due to a rumor that he was planning to run for an unprecedented third term. In response to the Herald‘s editorials, Harper’s Weekly published the above cartoon by Thomas Nast. At the center of the image is a donkey disguised as a lion. Most of the other animals in the cartoon are running from the menacing donkey, but the elephant–wearing the label of “the Republican vote”– remains standing at the edge of a pit labeled “Southern Claims Chaos.”

As time went on, the elephant came to symbolize not just Republican voters but the Grand Old Party itself.