And ez he can"t carry out his policy, the people are carryin it out for him.
Wich they do, a holdin it at arm"s length, and holdin their noses.
Moses is a cake half baked; he is hot on one side, and cold on tother.
He darsn"t let go uv Ablishnism, and is afeerd to come to us.
He hez been takin epsom salts and epecac; and one is workin up, and the other is workin down.
Where kin we look for comfort?
Do we turn to the people? Connecticut answers, ""Ror for Hawley!" and Noo Hampshier goes Ablishun.
Do we turn to the courts? Lo! Taney hez gone to his reward--him who aforetime dealt out Dimekratic justice, and who understood the nacher uv the n.i.g.g.e.r,--and Chase, who is pizen, reigns in his stead.
Raymond is growin weak in the knees, and Doolittle is a broken reed on which to lean.
We are too short at both ends.
Shall we go to Brazil? Lo! there they put n.i.g.g.e.rs in office.
Mexico holds out her hands to us; but, lo! the n.i.g.g.e.r is considered a man.
We hev no escape from the Etheopian; he is around us, and about us, and on top uv us.
I see no post orfis in the distance, no hope for the future.
Hed I been a Ablishunist, so ez to make the thing safe in the next world, I shood be glad to die, and quit this.
For my sole is pregnant with grief; my hart bugs out with woe.
PETROLEUM V. NASBY, Lait Paster uv the Church uv the Noo Dispensashun.
XX.
Mournful View of the Situation.
CONFEDRIT ROADS (wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky), April 26, 1866.
The work uv death is a goin on. The sakred precepts uv the Holy Skripters is bein daily violated by an insane majority, who hev subst.i.tooted their own noshens for the safe and pleasant revelashens uv Holy Writ, and the practices of their fathers.
Cood Noah, when he cussed Ham, and declared that he shood be a servant unto his brethren, hev foreseen how his cuss wood hev bin disregarded in these degenerate days, he wood, I boldly a.s.sert (and I make the a.s.sertion from wat I know uv the character uv that eminent navigator), hev kep sober, and not cusst Ham at all. For wat"s the yoose uv sich a cuss ef it"s to be removed jist when you want it to stick? Hed it bin taken off afore cotton wuz profitable, and afore the Southern people hed learned to depend onto their labor, it wouldent hev bin so bad, and they cood hev endoored it without murmurin. But, alars! not only is the South in a state of abject cussitood, but the Northern Dimocrasy is likewise.
The case stood thuswise: The South depended on the n.i.g.g.e.r; and the Northern politicians, like me, depended on the South. The n.i.g.g.e.r wuz the foundashun upon wich the entire structur rested; and now that he"s knocked out, it falls.
I wuz in Washington the other day, and wuz a unwillin witnis uv a scene wich filled me with unutterable disgust. The n.i.g.g.e.rs wuz a celebratin suthin connected with their onnatural removal from their normal condishun, and wuz a paradin the streets with bands uv music, and with banners and inscriptions. They hed the impudence to dress up in good clothes,--clothes wich I cood not afford to wear,--and three uv the impudent cusses hed the ashoorance to go so far in their imitation of human beins ez to make speeches; and to my horrer, the ma.s.s uv em hed ben so well trained by somebody that they actily cheered, and ez near ez I cood make out got in the applause at the right place, and all without the a.s.sistance uv a indivijjle to commence applaudin at the right time, wich we hev generally found nessary at Dimmekratic meetins.
Their inscripshuns wuz insultin. They hed em all spelt rite, and; they wuz full uv aloosions to ekal rites, and onqualifyed suffrage, and sich, planely showin that the poor, misguided critters hed no idee that they wuz loaded down with a cuss, and that becoz uv that cuss they hed no rites watever.
In Richmond I saw other evidences uv the terrible breakin down uv the barriers wich Noah set up atween the races. I wuz sittin in a hoss car, when a n.i.g.g.e.r hed the onparalleled a.s.shoorence to enter and set down. I remonstrated with the chattel, who laft in my face.
Thus the old landmarks is bein removed, and thus the foundations uv society is a bein broken up. I saw in Richmond fair wimmin who hed, in olden times, never known wat labor wuz, a washin dishes, and cookin their own vittles; and I saw men, who hed wunst lived luxuriously on the labor uv a hundred n.i.g.g.e.rs, now drivin drays, and sellin dry goods and groceries, and sich, and my soul sunk within me. Wuz the cuss a mistake?
Wuz the n.i.g.g.e.r not the race that wuz cussed? or has he bec.u.m so bleached, so lost in the white by amalgamation, that there ain"t enough uv the black left in each indivijjle for the cuss to hang to.
Andrew Johnson! in your hands rests our cause; on your ackshen depends our weal or woe! Yoo, and yoo alone, kin remedy this. Wat if a corrupt and radikle Congress does override your vetoes, and legislate for these cuss-ridden people? Yoo hev yet a power wich yoo must not hesitate to make em feel. Clear out the rump Congress; declare our Southern brethren ent.i.tled to their seats, and see that they hev em. The Dimocrisy uv the North, wich wuz latterly for peece, are now fur war. They will sustain yoo. Reverse yoor ackshen, and yoo kin attach em to yoo with hooks uv steel. There ain"t no risk in it--nary risk. Turn the Ablishnists out uv the Post Offices, and replace em with Democrats; let it be understood that yoo hev come back to your fust love, and no longer abide in the tents uv Ablishunism,--and all will be well. Talk less uv yoor policy, and put more uv it into acts. Combine Post Offices with Policy, and proclaim that only he who sustains the latter shel hev the former, and yoo kin depend on the entire Democrisy North. We are waitin anxiously.
From the South comes up the cry, wich the North reekkoes.
Will Androo Johnson, wich Ablishnists call Moses, but wich we, for obvious reasons, style the 2d Jaxon, heed that cry? or will he persist in clingin to the black idol he embraced four years ago?
PETROLEUM V. NASBY, Lait Paster uv the Church uv the Noo Dispensashun.
XXI.
A Psalm of Gladness.--The Veto of the Civil Rights Bill, and other Matters, occasioning a Feeling of Thankfulness in the Minds of the Democracy.
CONFEDRIT ROADS (wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky), May 1, 1866.
I am a canary, a nightengale. A lark, am I.
I raise my voice in song. I pour forth melojus notes.
I am a lamb, wich frisketh, and waggeth his tale, and leapeth, ez he nippeth the tender gra.s.s. I am a colt, wich kicketh up its heels exuberantly.
I am a bridegroom, wich cometh from his bride in the mornin feelin releeved in the knowledge that she wore not palpitators, nor false calves, nor nothin false, afore she wuz hizn.
I am a steamboat captin with a full load, a doggry keeper on a Sat.u.r.day nite, a sportin man with four aces in his hand.
All these am I, and more.
For we sought to establish ourselves upon a rock, but found that the underpinnin wuz gone out uv it.
Even slavery wuz our strong place, and our hope; but the corners hed bin knocked out uv it.
The sons uv Belial hed gone forth agin it. Ma.s.sachusetts hed a.s.sailed it, and the North West hed drawd its bow agin it.
Wendell Phillips hed pecked out wun stun, Garret Smith another; and the soljers hed completed what they hed begun.
And Congris, even the Rump, hed decreed its death, and hed held forth its hand to Ethiopia.
It pa.s.sed a bill givin the n.i.g.g.e.rs their rites, and takin away from us our rites: