The Genral withered him with a litenin glance, and resoomed:
“I shel, uv course, offer the North suthin in the way uv compensation, for the troo theory uv a Republikin Government is compermise. On our part we pledge ourselves to kum back, and give the North the benefit uv our kumin back, so long ez Massachusetts condux herself akkordin to our ijees uv what is rite. But ef this ekitable adjustment is rejected, all I hev to say then is, I shell resign, and the Government may sink without wun effort from me to save it.”
I wuz about to give in my experience, when the old man, who wuz sittin near us, broke in agin:
“My name,” sed he, “is Maginnis, and I live in Alabama. I want to say a word to the gentleman from Karliny, and to the wun from Noo Gersey.”
“How,” retorted I, “do yoo know I’m from Noo Gersey, not hevin spoken a word in yoor hearin?”
“By a instink I hev. Whenever I see a Sutherner layin it down heavy to a indivijouel whose phisynogamy is uv sich a cast that upon beholdin it yoo instinktively feel to see that yoor pocket-handkercher is safe, a face that wood be dangerous if it had courage into it, I alluz know the latter to be a Northern copperhead. The Noo Gersey part I guessed at, becoz, my friend, that State furnished the lowest order uv copperheads of any uv em. Pardon me ef I flatter yoo. But what I wanted to say wus, that I spose suthen hez happened doorin the past 4 years. I was a original secessionist. Sum years ago I hed a hundred niggers, and wuz doin well with em. But, unforchunitly, my brother died, and left me ez much more land, but no niggers. I wanted niggers enuff to work that land, and spozed ef cut off from the North, and the slave-trade wuz reopened, I cood git em cheaper. Hentz I seceshed. Sich men ez Genral McStinger told me the North woodent fight or I woodent hev, secesht, but I did it. I went out for wool and cum back shorn. I seceshed with 100 niggers to git 200, and alas! I find myself back into the old government, with nary a nigger.
“But all this is no excoose for talkin bald noncents. Yoo old ass,” sed he, addressin Genral McStinger, “yoo talk uv wat yoo will do, and what yoo wont. Hevent you diskivered that yoo are whipped? Hevent you found out that yoo are subjoogated? Are yoo back into the Yoonyun uv your own free will and akkord? Hevent yoo got a pardon in yoor pockit, which dockyment is all that saves yoor neck from stretchin hemp? Why do yoo talk uv wat South karliny will and wont do? Good Lord! I recollect about a year since South karliny would never permit her soil 2 be pollutid by Yankee hirelins, yit Sherman marched all over it with a few uv em, and skarcly a gun was fired at em. So too I recollect that that sed State, wich wuz agoin to whip the entire North, and wich wood, ef overpowered, submit gracefully and with dignity to annihilation, and sich, wuz the first to, git down on her marrow bones, and beg for peace like a dorg. Ef yoo intend this talk for the purpose uv skarin the North, beleeve me when I say that the North aint so easy skared ez it wuz. Ef its intendid for home consumption, consider me the people. Ive heard it before, and I’ll take no more uv it until my stumick settles. It makes me puke. The fact is we are whipped, and hev got to do the best we kin. We are a goin to pay the Federal debt, and aint goin to pay the confederet debt. Davis will be hung, and serve him rite. States rites is dead, and slavery is abolished, and with it shivelry; and its my opinion the South is a d——d sight better off without either of em. I kin sware, now, after livin outside uv the shadder uv the flag 4 yeres, that I love it! You bet I do. I carry a small one in my coat pocket. I hev a middlin sized one waved by my youngest boy over the family when at prayers, and a whalin big one wavin over my house all the time. I hev diskivered that its a good thing to live under, and when sich cusses as yoo talk uv what yoo will and wont do under it, I bile. Go home, yoo cusses, go home! Yoo, South, and pullin orf your coat, go to work, thankin God that Johnson’s merciful enuff to let yoo go home at all insted uv hangin yoo up like a dorg, for tryin to bust a Guverment too good for yoo. Yoo, North, thankful that the men uv sense uv the North hed the manhood to prevent us from rooinin ourselves by makin sich ez yoo our niggers. Avaunt!”
And the excited Mr. Maginnis, who is evidently subjoogated, strode out uv our presence. His intemperit talk cast a chill over our confidencis, and we dident resoom with the ease and freedom we commenced with, and in a few minutes we parted. I didn’t like him.
Petroleum V. Nasby,
Lait Paster uv the Church of the New Dispensashun.