100. C.
A KENTUCKY TEA PARTY.
Confedrit × Roads (wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky), }
April 1, 1866.
[1]
Charles Sumner is not a very popular man in this section
uv Kentucky; on the contrary, quite reverse. He is known
here ez an Ablishnist; ez one who is a chief supporter uv that
hidjus sin — the infidelity, I may say, for a man may ez well
deny the whole Bible ez to cast discredit upon Onesimus,
Hagar, and Ham, onto wich the whole system uv Afrikin
slavery rests — the originator, therefore, uv the infidle beleef
that Slavery is not uv divine origin, wich, judgin from the experience
uv the last five years, appears to be gainin ground in
the North. He is not, therefore, popular in this region.
Yisterday I attendid a tea party at Deekin Pogram's, to
wich the elite uv the Corners wuz present, incloodin an Illinoy
store-keeper uv the name uv Pollock, wich hed bin invited because
the Deekin hed, some three months ago, bought a bill uv
goods uv him on ninety days' time, and wantid an extension.
While at the table enjoyin the
“Cup wich cheers, but don't intoxicate very much,”
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 Summer 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 bonenis; but uv course, she bein a part nigger, the
resemblance may be sot 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 heard 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-eights white,” sed Mrs.
Pogram.
“And no Kentuckian ever marries a nigger?” inquired the
store-keeper, who I saw wuz pursooin his investigations altogether
too far.
“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 unbridled 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 original Hebrew, signifies the hindquarter
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 individual 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 yoo 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 uv eight, after murderin, in cold blood, his
grandparents, one uv wich wuz a Algerine 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 Massachoosits,
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,
Ann Dickinson his daughter, Fred Douglas his half brother,
and that he kissed, habitually, every nigger child he met, and
frowned so severely 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.
