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 substitooted 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 assert (and I make the assertion 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 Nigger; and the Northern politicians, like me, depended on the South. The nigger 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 niggers 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 mass 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 assistance 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 nigger hed the onparalleled asshoorence 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 niggers, now drivin drays, and sellin dry goods and groceries, and sich, and my soul sunk within me. Wuz the cuss a mistake? Wuz the nigger not the race that wuz cussed? or has he becum 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 entitled 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 reëkkoes.