Mending the Family Kettle.

A political cartoon published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper on June 16, 1866, concerns passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. U.S. president Andrew Johnson holds a leaking kettle that is labeled "The Reconstructed South." Columbia, the female figure of liberty, carries a baby who represents the Fourteenth Amendment—an amendment that had just been approved by both houses of the U.S. Congress and sent to the states for ratification. Columbia, eager to speed up the ratification process in the South, tells the president: "Now, Andy, I wish you and your boys would hurry up that job, because I want to use that kettle right away. You are all talking too much about it." The amendment was not ratified by the requisite number of states until July 9, 1868. Virginia ratified it on October 8, 1869.