“Yes, I know that; but then they haint got anything other nations want. It was our cotton what brought all the gold and silver into the country.”
“There’s that old song again. Why, they’ve got the best perducing land in the world. And their corn and cattle aint to be sneezed at the world over.”
“Well, that may all be true,” rejoined the other, “but they can’t whip us.”
“Well, suppose we whip them, what will be gained?”
“Why, we’ll stop the ’tarnal thieves from stealing our niggers.”
“Now that’s a grand mistake. Don’t you see every nigger in the South will break right for the North, for there won’t be no Fugitive Slave Law then. And then you know what a dreadful time we had not long ago up Lowndes county with the niggers, for this here country’s got twice as many niggers as whites.”
At this an angry dispute arose between them, one declaring the other an abominable Yankee, and the other is stoutly denying it. Oaths were freely bandied, and the loyal Southerner threatened to call the corporal of the guard, and have the other arrested. The latter in the mean time continued to protest that he had said nothing detrimental to Southern interests.
“Well, how did you know,” said the rabid secessionist, “about the cattle and corn in New York, if you had never lived there?”
“But I have been there, though I never lived in that region.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” responded his antagonist, “you had better keep mighty quiet about it, or we’ll treat you like we did John Peterson, that miserable Yankee that we hung last week to a pine tree.”