Chapter 6
ez Dryden hez it, tho I bleeve, to keep off chills, in this country, they mix three and a half parts uv whiskey to one uv tea, the name uv Sumner wuz mentioned.
Mrs. Pogram to-wunst remarked that she didn't want the name uv that ojus creecher spoken at her table.
"Why?" sed I, gratified at the ebulition.
"I hate him!" sed she, spitefully.
"So do I," replied I; "but what hev yoo agin him, aside from his obnoxious political opinions?"
"Didn't he marry a nigger?" sed Mrs. P., triumphantly. "Didn't he marry a nigger--a full-blooded nigger? and hezn't he hed nineteen yaller children, every one uv wich he compelled, agin their will, to marry full-blooded niggers? Didn't he--"
"Mrs. P.," sed this Illinoy store-keeper, wich his name it wuz Pollock, "do yoo object to miscegenation?"
"Missee--what?" replied she, struck all uv a heap at the word.
"Miscegenation--amalgamation--marryin whites with niggers."
"Do I?" retorted she; "ketch a son uv mine marryin a nigger! They are another race; they'r beasts; and who'd marry em but jist sich men ez Sumner and them other Ablishnists?"
"Then permit me to ask," sed this Pollock, wich wuz bound to kick up a muss, "ef ther's any race uv pure blood in this section uv Kentucky, wich is yaller?"
"No! uv course not," sed Mrs. P.; "them yaller people is mulatters--half nigger, half white."
"And them ez is quite white--not quite, but nearly so--about the color uv a new saddle, like Jane, there," sed he, pintin to a octoroon girl uv 18 wich used to belong to the Deekin afore the isshooin uv the infernal proclamashen, "like Jane, there, wich is waitin on the Deekin, and--but, good Lord!" sed he, startin up like a tragedian.
"Wat!" shouted the company, all startin up.
"Nothin," sed he: "only, now that Jane's face is in range with the Deekin's, wat a wonderful resemblance! She hez the Pogram nose and ginral outline uv face; not Mrs. P.'s angularity, but the Deekin all over. My deer sir," sed he, addressin the Deekin, "ef she wuzn't a quadroon, I shood say she looks enough like yoo to be yoor daughter, by a first wife, I shood say, for she hez not, ez I remarked, Mrs. P.'s angularity and gineral boneinis; but uv course, she bein a part nigger, the resemblance may be sat down ez-a-very-remarkable-coincidence!"
The Deekin turned ez white ez a sheet, and Mrs. Pogram turned ez red ez a biled lobster, from wich I inferred that there wuz trooth in a rumor I had heerd about the Deekin and his wife hevin a misunderstandin about a nigger woman and her baby, about 18 years ago, wich resulted in his bein made bald-headed in less than a minute, and the baby's mother being sold South. The Illinoy store-keeper, uv the name uv Pollock, resoomed,--
"I wuz about askin wat them niggers is ez is nearly white?"
"Why, they'r octoroons, or seven-eighths white," sed Mrs. Pogram.
"And no Kentuckian ever marries a nigger?" inquired the store-keeper, who I saw wuz pursooin his investigations altogether too fur.
"Never!" sed Mrs. Pogram; "we leave that to Ablishnists."
"Well, then," sed this Pollock, who, I spect, wuzn't half so innsent ez he let on, "I see that yoo hev no objection to mixin with the nigger, providin yoo don't do it legally; that amalgamashen don't hurt nothin, pervidin yoo temper it with adultery. Is that the idee, Mrs. Pogram?"
Mrs. P. wuz mad, and made no reply, and Pollock persood the subjick.
"Jane there, is, I take it, about one-eighth nigger. She got her white blood from whites, uv course; and ez there coodent be no marryin in the biznis, there is proof positive in her face that the 8th commandment hez bin violated about four times somewhere in this vicinity, or wherever her maternal ancestors, on her mother's side, may hev resided. What do yoo think about it, Deekin? Ez a Christian, woodent it be better to marry em than to add a violation uv the commandment to the sin uv amalgamashen? It wood redoose yoor load jest a half."
The Deekin wuz too indignant to reply, and ez it involved a pint altogether too hefty for his limited intelleck, I took it up.
"My dear sir," I remarked, "yoo don't make the proper distinction, or, rather, yoo don't appreciate the subjick at all. The nigger here sustains only one character with us,--that uv a inferior bein, the slave uv the hawty Caucashen, uv whom we are the noblest specimens; that is, the Deekin is, he bein a Southerner. I unfortunately wuz born in the North, and am a hawty Caucashen only by adoption. To marry a nigger wood be to destroy our idea uv sooperiority, for we marry only our ekals. The intercourse with em, the results uv wich yoo see indications, bein outside uv the pale uv matrimony, is not, ez yoo wood suppose, the result uv unbrideled licentiousnis, but is merely the assertion uv our superiority. When the lordly Caucashen (uv whom the Deekin is wich) bids a daughter uv Ham (wich, in the orginal Hebrew, signifies the hind-quarter uv a hog) come to him, and she doth it not, he breaks her head, wich inculcates obedience. One is only a slave indeed when he surrenders all his individyooel rites. The female slave cannot be considered ez entirely subdooed until she hez yielded to her owner everything. To marry em wood be to elevate em; the intercourse common among us is not a sin, it bein merely the assertion uv that superiority wich we claim is founded on the Holy Scripter. See Onesimus, Hagar, and Ham."
"Yes," sed the Deekin, who wuz now on the right track; "it's a assertion uv our sooperiority; it's a dooty every white man owes to his class, and I, for one, will alluz--"
"Let me ketch yoo at it, Gabe Pogram," shouted Mrs. P., "and I'll give you sich a cat-haulin ez yoo never--drat yoor sooperiority, and yoor Ham, and yoor Caucashen. Niggers is niggers, and--"
Noticin that Mrs. Pogram hedn't quite arrived at the proper pitch uv self-sacrifice, I turned the discussion onto Sumner agin, ez a subjick upon wich they cood all agree.
I learned that his father wuz a Dutch grocery-keeper, and his mother an Irish washer-woman; that he run away from home at the tender age of 8, after murderin, in cold blood, his grandparents, one uv wich wuz a Jew and tother a Chinese; that he wuz apprenticed to the shoemakin biznis, and hed cut the throat uv his boss and his wife, and immersed the younger children into a biler uv scaldin water, where they were found mostly dead seven hours afterward; that he acquired wealth a sellin lottry tickets and brass clocks, et settry. His servants wuz redoost Southern gentlemen wich he hed swindled into his debt, and wich, under the laws uv Massychoosits, coodent git away, and that his intimate friends and associates wuz niggers, with wich he sot long at the festive board, and drunk champane; that Lucresha Mott wuz his sister, Anna Dickinson his daughter, Fred Douglas his half-brother, and that he kissed, habitually, every nigger child he met, and frowned so severially onto white children ez to throw em into spasms, and other items uv information uv wich, livin in the North, I wuz ignorant. Ez I remarked, he isn't popular down here, and, cood hardly be elected to Congris from this Deestrick. The tea party broke up shortly after, Pollock winkin at me villainously ez he left the house, feelin good to think how he hed opened a old sore. That Pollock needs watchin.
PETROLEUM V. NASBY, Lait Paster uv the Church uv the Noo Dispensashun.
XVIII.
A Cry of Exultation.--A Gleam of Light.
CONFEDRIT × ROADS (wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky), April 2, 1866.
Kin it be? Is it troo, or is it not troo? Is Androo Johnson all my fancy painted him, or is he still a heaven-defying persekooter uv the Democratic Saints? That's wat I and some thousands uv waitin souls wood go suthin handsome to know.
I confess I never quite lost faith in Androo.
Pro-slavery Democracy sticks to a man ez does the odor uv the gentle skunk to clothes, and it is got rid uv only by the same means, to-wit, buryin the victim thereof.
Androo started out to be a Moses, and he is one; but I think he's changed his Israelites. I onst saw a woman skinnin live eels, and I reproached her, saying,--
"Woman, why skinnest thou eels alive? Doth it not pain em?"
"Nary!" retorted she. "I've skinned em this way for going on to 20 years, and they're used to it."
Even so. The negroes hev bin in bondage so long that they're used to it, and Androo feelin a call to continue in the Moses biznes, hez, I hope, turned his attention to the Dimocrisy. It's us he's a-goin to lead up out uv the Egypt uv wretchedness we've bin in for neerly five years; it's US that's a-goin to quit brick making without straw, and go up into the Canaan wich is runnin with the milk and honey uv public patronage. We shel hev sum fites: there's Amakelitish post masters and Phillistine collectors to displace, but with a second Jaxon at our hed what can we fear?
I feel to-night like a young colt. To me it seems ez though my venerable locks, wich hangs scantily about my temples, hed grown black agin, and that my youth was returnin. Ef I hed any notion uv sooiside, them idea is dismist. I'm young agin. Wat hez worked this change? you ask. It's the proclamation declarin the war at an end, and withdrawin from the Dimocratic States the odious hirelins uv the tyrant Linkin, and the doin away uv that terrible marshal law. That's wat's done it for me. Now I feel like sayin, with one uv old, "Mine eyes hev seed thy glory; let thy servant depart in peace."
We hev bin dooly subjoogated some time, and a waitin for this. We wantid it, and longed for it ez the hart does for the water course, and considerably more, onless the hart wuz thirsty in the extreme. For now we are in the Yoonyun agin; we are under the shadder uv that glorious old flag wich protects all men ceptin niggers and ablishnists. The nigger is left to be adjustid by us, who is to be governed by the laws wich control labor and capital. Certenly he is--uv coarse. I saw two uv my neighbors adjustin one last nite. They wuz doin it with a paddle, wich wuz bored full uv holes. He didn't seem to enjoy it ez much ez they did. By that proclamation our states are agin under their own control. Let em go at wunst to work to destroy all the vestiges uv the crooel war through wich they hev past. There aint no solgers now to interfere, for the policy uv keepin soldiers in and among free people is abhorrent to freedom and humanity. Go to work at wunst, and build up the broken walls uv your Zion.
We must hev Peace and unanimity; and Peace cannot dwell among us onless there's a oneness uv purpose and sentiment. To prokoor this is yoor fust dooty. If there be among you them ez opposed yoo doorin yoor late struggle for Rites, hist em. Their presence is irritatin, and kin not be tolerated. Ablishunism is as abhorrent now as ever, and the sooner yoo are rid uv it the better. It is safe to assume that every man who opposed the lately deceased confederacy is a Ablishnist.
The next step, and the most important, is to tear down the nigger school houses and churches wich hev bin built here and there, and kindly take the nigger by the ear, and lead him back to his old quarters, wich is his normal position. The Yankee school teachers sent here by Freedmen's Aid Societies shood properly be hung for spreadin dissatisfaction and spellin books among the niggers, but I wood advise mercy and consiliation. Tar and featherin, with whippins, will perhaps do ez well, and will go to show the world that our justice is tempered with charity; that we kin be generous ez well ez just. Yoor Legislatures shood be instantly called together, and proper laws for the government uv the Freedmen should be passed. Slavery is abolisht, and the people must live up to the requirements of the act in good faith. I protest agin any violation uv good faith, but labor must be done, for the skripter commands it, and our frail nature demands wat cant be got without it. We don't like to do it, but shel skripter be violated? Not at all. The nigger must do it hisself, not ez a slave, for slavery is abolished, but ez a free man. Ethiopean citizens uv Amerikin descent (wich is mulatters), and full-blooded blacks, and all hevin in the veins a taint uv Afrikin blood, must be restrained gently, and for their own good, I suggest laws ez follows:--
1. They must never leave the plantation onto wich they are, when this act goes into effect, without a pass from the employer, under penalty uv bein shot.
2. They shel hev the privilege uv suein everybody uv their own color, ef they kin give white bail for costs.
3. They shel hev the full privilege uv bein sued the same ez white folks.
4. They shel be competent ez witnesses in cases in wich they are not interested, but their testimony is to go for nothin ef it is opposed by the testimony uv a white man or another nigger.
5. No nigger shel be allowed to buy or lease real estate outside uv any incorporated city, town, or village.
6. No nigger shel be allowed to buy or lease real estate within any incorporated city, town, or village, except as hereinafter provided for, to wit:--
He shel give notice uv his desires by publication for six consecutive weeks in some noosepaper uv general circulation in sed village, for wich publication he shel pay invariably in advance. He shel then give bonds, in sich sums ez the mayor shel decide, that neither he, nor any uv his ancestors, or descendants, or relations, will ever become public charges, and will always behave themselves with doo humility, the bondsmen to be white men and freeholders. Then the mayor shel cause a election to be proclaimed, and if the free white citizens shel vote "yea" unanimously, he shel be allowed to buy or lease real estate. If there is a dissenting vote, then he shel be put onto the chain gang for six months for his impudence in makin sich a request.
7. Their wages shel be sich ez they and the employers shel mutually agree; but that the negroes may not become luxurious and effeminate, wich two things is vices wich goes to sap the simplicity and strength uv a people, the sum shel never exceed $5 per month, but not less than enuff in all cases to buy him one soot uv close per annum, wich the employer shel purchase hisself.
8. The master shell hev the privilege uv addin to this code sich other rules and regulations for their proper government ez may strike him ez being good for em from time to time.
These provisions sekure the nigger in all the rites wich kin reasonably be asked for him, just elevated ez he is from slavery, and thrown upon the world, ignorant of the dooties of his new position and status. He is simple, and needs the guidin hand uv the stronger race.
My hart is too full to make further suggestions. Organized into a tabloo, with the constitooshun in one hand (wich beloved instrument kivers a great deal of ground), a scar-bangled spanner in the other, and a tramplin on a bloo coat wich I stript orf uv a returned nigger solger wich wuz sick, I exultinly exclaim, "The Union ez it is is ez good ez the Union ez it wuz. 'Ror!"
PETROLEUM V. NASBY, Lait Paster uv the Church uv the Noo Dispensashun.
XIX.
A Wail of Anguish.--The Passage of the Civil Rights Bill over the Veto.
CONFEDRIT × ROADS (wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky), April 9, 1866.
I am a kittle full of cusses.
Under me is a burnin fire uv rage, wich is bein continyooally fed with the oil uv disappointment.
And I bile over.
The civil rites bill, wich our Moses put his foot into, we thought wuz dead.
And we fired great guns, and hung out our flags, wich we laid aside in 1860, and made a joyful noise.
For we said, one unto another, Lo! he is a true Moses, inasmuch ez he is a leadin us out uv the wilderness.
The civil rites bill wuz the serpent wat bit us, and he histed it, that we might look and live.
Now let us be joyful!
For the Ethiopian is delivered into our hands, bound hand and foot.
Blessed be Moses!
We will make him grind our corn; but he shel not eat thereof.
Blessed be Moses!
We will make him tread out our wheat; but we will muzzle his mouth.
Blessed be Moses!
He shall pick our cotton; but the hire he receiveth, he shall stick in his eye without injuring the sight thereof.
Blessed be Moses!
He shall toil in the sugar mill; but the sugar shall he not sell.
Blessed be Moses!
His sweat shall nourish our corn; but he shall eat nary ear thereof.
Blessed be Moses!
We will burn his school houses, and destroy his spelling books (for shall the nigger be our superior?), and who shall stay our hand?
The skool teachers we will tar and feather, and whar is the bloo-koted hirelins to make us afeerd?
Blessed be Moses!
We looked at the nigger, and said, Ha, ha! the last state uv that chattle is wuss nor the fust; for before, we hed his labor while he wuz strong and healthy, but hed to take care on him when he wuz sick and old; and now we kin git his labor without the care.
Blessed be Moses!
The Ablishnists cast out one devil, and garnished the room; but there wuz seven devils more stronger and hungrier, which rushed in and pre-empted the premises.
Blessed be Moses!
But our song uv joy wuz turned into a wale uv anguish.
Moses sought to hist the serpent, but the serpent histed him.
He's on a pole, and the bitin North wind is a blowin onto him.
He can't get up any higher, because his pole ain't any longer; and he cant't get down, because he ain't no place to light onto.
He vetoed the bills, and Congress hez vetoed him; the civil rights bill they passed in a uncivil manner.
Now, bein the nigger hez rights, he is our ekal.
Our ekil is the nigger now, and onless the skool house is burned, and the spellin books destroyed, he will soon be our superior.
We wuz willin to give him the right uv bein sued; but, alas! he kin sue.
He kin be a witness agin us, and he kin set his face agin ourn.
Our wise men may make laws to keep him in his normal speer, but uv wat avail is they?
We kin buy and sell him no more, neither he nor his children.
The men will cleave unto their wives, and the wives unto their husbands, and our hand is powerlis to separate em.
Their children kin we no more put up at auction, and sell to the highest bidder, we pocketing joyfully the price thereof.
They hev become sassy and impudent, and say, "Go to; are we not men?"
I bade one git orf the sidewalk, and he bade me be damned.
I chucked a nearly white one under the chin, and smiled onto her, and she squawked; and her husband, hearin the squawk thereof, came up and bustid my head, even as a white man wood hev dun.
I chastised wun who gave me lip; and he sood me, a Caucashun, for assault and battery, and got a judgment!
Wale! for Moses put out his hand to save us these indignities, but his hand wuz too weak.
We killed Linkin in vain.
Our Moses is playin Jaxon. He fancieth he resembleth him, becoz his inishals is the same.
He resembleth Jaxon muchly--in that Jaxon hed a policy wich he cood carry out, while our Moses hez a policy wich he can't carry out.
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 nigger,--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 niggers in office.
Mexico holds out her hands to us; but, lo! the nigger 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 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.