WRONG!
The "cartoonist" (Thomas Nast) was lampooning Andrew Jackson:
"A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by Thomas Nast. Harper's Weekly, January 19, 1870.
Somehow the RATs didn't mind being referenced as "jackasses" and only recently threw Andrew Jackass under the bus for being, well...what he was.
I’m terribly terribly sorry to break the news to you.
You haven’t shown my assertion wrong at all, no matter who originated it. You see a donkey in a political cartoon, you know who this refers to. Same about an elephant. You are screaming “Darkness” at the sun.