"Air you in earnest, Colonel?" asks the coon.
"I am," replies the mighty Bull.
"Don't fire," says the coon, "I'll come down."
Even Lincoln's proclamation emancipating the slaves in the seceding states did not soften the asperity of the old-time anti-slavery advocate. Punch feigned to see in this message only the ruse of a wily combatant driven to a last resource. This idea is put into a quatrain, as follows:
The American Chess-Players
Although of conquest Yankee North despairs,
His brain for some expedient wild he racks,
And thinks that having failed on the white squares,
He can't do worse by moving on the Blacks.
Under the heading "One Good Turn Deserves Another," Old Abe is shown extending musket, sword and knapsack to a negro who refuses to be cajoled by his honeyed words.
"Why I do declare," says Abe, "it's my dear old friend, Sambo! Course you'll fight for us, Sambo. Lend us a hand, old hoss, do."
The same jibe finds vent in the following poems:
ABE'S LAST CARD; OR, ROUGE-ET-NOIR