[1] Published as a double-page spread in the March 23, 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly, Southern Justice is one of a series of images Nast produced in 1866 and 1867 that "emphasized freedmen's potential in American life...the suffering of freedmen, the barbarity of night riders, and the dangers of Johnson's reconstruction policies to real men and women—people whose potential could be lost through northern inaction.

"[2] Patting its own back a bit, Harper's Weekly ran an unbylined feature on Nast in May that described Amphitheatrum Johnsonianum and Southern Justice as "very significant.

They represent not accidents, such as might happen anywhere, but a system of brutal crime...persecution and destruction of loyal citizens of the United States...These pictures are the argument of the Reconstruction bill.

"You could not find a jury in South Carolina that would convict a man for killing a Union soldier, no matter what the testimony."

"I do not believe there is much chance of convicting a resident or citizen of Georgia for murder if the victim is a Union man or a negro."