University of Virginia Library

135. CXXXV.
MR. NASBY TAKES A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW.

“Backerd, turn backerd, O Time, in yoor flite,” is the fust
line uv a song wich I heerd not long since. Wood that Time
cood perform that back ackshen feat, and get us all back wher
we wuz six years ago. But Time can't. Time is a perpetooal
moshen, wich must go on and on, and wich can't never retrace
her steps.

The situashen ain't pertickelerly agreeable jist now. It
hezn't a joocy look, nor does it promise an improvement in
the future. The confidence uv the Dimocrisy uv Kentucky
is shaken to the extent that it's lost its equilibrium, and
totters to its centre. When it falls, I shel be found under
the rooins.

The passage of the Military Law may be sed to be the last
feather wich reely ought to break the Kentucky camel's back.
It's the deepest stab at constooshnel liberty and ekal rites,
inezmuch ez it not only blasts forever the hopes uv re-establishin
slavery, but gives the nigger all the rites and privileges
enjoyed by white men. We, who are chiefly interested, are
not to be consulted in the matter. Fedral hirelins, whose very
presence is pizen to the people uv these States, are to be quartered
onto us to see that “justis” — wat holler mockry! — is
done to em. The governments established by Androo Johnson
is overturned ef they don't play the fiddle to military satraps,
and accept the Constooshnel Amendment, wich perhibits
them who wuz our champions in the late effort to destroy a
government wich we hatid, from takin hold uv it agin and
runnin it. Wuz ther ever sich a mixter uv injustis and perscripshen?
Wuz ther ever sich severity? Wuz ther ever
sich a lack uv magnanimity? And all this time where is Johnson?
He vetoed these bills, — but wherefore? He knowd
that the Rump Congress hed a majority uv two thirds, and
cood pass em over his veto; why, then, when they set his

authority at defiance, didn't he rise in his might and disperse
em? Where, too, wuz the Dimocrisy uv the North? Where
are they in this crisis, when our dearest rites is bein shiprecked
on the iron-bound rocks uv despotism? Why don't
they rally, ez they threatened, and demand that Johnson shel
hurl them levelers from their usurped seats, and restore peace,
on sich terms ez we shall consider ekitable, to this wunst
happy, but now distracted, country. Alas! they hevn't time.
I see them who breathed so much vengence and slawtrins
afore Johnson hed offices to dispose uv, a neglectin us, and a
runnin about gittin signatoors to applicashens for Post Offises,
and hollerin to us ez they ketch their breath, —

“Accept the condishens — git back into the Yoonion, that
we may elect the President in 1868, who'll give us all the
patronage!”

Their noosepapers all shreek, —

“Accept, and get back into the Yoonion, that we may elect
the next President, who'll give us all the patronage!”

And that ain't the worst uv it. Them wich we bought up
with appintments diskivered on a sudden that a Abolition Senit
hed to confirm em, and to sekoor that they hev gone back
onto us. Custer is a shinin example, Wilcox is another, and I
mite menshun hundreds uv others who hev slid back in the
same manner.

Troy wuz taken by the strategy uv the Greeks, who exposed
a wooden horse, in the bowels uv wich wuz conceeled armed
men, wich the verdant Troys pulled inside their gates. Androo
Johnson wuz the wooden horse wich wuz sent into our
camp by the Ablishnists, and the offices wuz the armed men
in his bowels. They hev bin our rooin. So long ez they wuz
in the dim distance, the Democracy wuz hungry and feroshus,
and capable uv almost anythin — so soon ez they got em, they
become quiet ez lambs. The Postmaster who holds a commishn
sez to himself, “Wherefore shel I bust the Government
under wich I hev a place? Kin I git another under the new
one?” and he yells to us, “Accept the terms!” We capchered
the camp uv the enemy, but are demoralized by the
plunder we found. It's the old trick, over agin, these offices,
which the white men yoost to play onto the Injins, to wit: —

evacuatin a posishen and leavin a barrel uv whiskey behind,
knowin that the Injin's instincts, like them uv a Kentucky
Dimokrat's, wood lead him to git blind drunk, and make him a
easy prey to the skelpin knife. The offisis wuz the whiskey
wich intoxicated our braves; and our skelps, so to speek, hang
at the belts uv our enemies. Sumner hez many, Thad Stevens
hez many, and Butler is a gatherin uv em with a rapidity wonderful
to behold.

But wat marks the demoralizashen uv the Dimocrisy the
most, is the follerin extract wich I cut from the Noo York
World, wunst our trusted organ.

“As regards the popular notion of the odor of the negro, it
may be positively stated that he, in this respect, is like the
white, — a clean negro bein free from it, and a foul one
cursed by it.”

Ef this be troo — ef the nigger don't stink, then Noah got
drunk, and Ham wuz cust, in vane — then Paul sent back
Onesimus for nothin, and Hager is uv no more interest to the
Dimocrisy than any other female who hez bin dead several
thousand years. The Dimocratic party wuz built upon this
stink; and ef that corner-stun is knocked out, the temple falls,
and buried all beneath its rooins who are sheltered under it,
uv whom I am the cheefest and the loveliest among ten
thousand.

At one fell swoop the wind is knockt out uv the sales uv the
Northern Dimocrisy. Wat is the nigger now to them ef he
does not stink? “Popler noshen,” indeed! Trooly it wuz a
popler noshen. That stink led hundreds uv thousands uv
Democrats by the nose. That “odor” — ez the writer styles
it — wuz our best holt, and wun wich wuz everything to us.
That stink wuz all that elevated the Demokrat over the nigger
— that wuz our mark of sooperiority. We, at times, wuz not
uv the precise odor uv Nite-bloomin serious. A Democratic
mass convenshen, when in a tite room, with two stoves in it,
wuz not the most odorous gatherin in the world; but we
thanked God continyooally that the smell wich ariz ez the
room got hot wuz not the pecooliar aroma uv the nigger, and
we wuz comforted. But this writer redooses the whole thing

— the whole difference between the nigger and a Democrat —
to a matter of color and cleanliuess.. Wat heresy! Wat
iconaclasm! (this last word meanin, I believe, idol breakin, or
suthin uv that sort). Ef this be troo, then in the nite time, a
nigger with his feet washed is better than a Democrat! For one,
now I care not ef Dr. Cummins' “Last Warnin Cry” be trooly
the last. I'm sorry that he rented his house for ninety-nine
years, ez it hez a tendency to destroy my faith in his beleef
that the world is about peggin out. The sooner Gabrel blows
his horn the better I shel be sooted.

Here agin this matter uv State offisis comes in. The Dimocrisy
uv Noo York see that nigger suffrage is inevitable, and
to sekoor their share uv it, they're biddin in time; forgettin
that while they're acheevin a temporary success on that side
uv the cirkle we're losing all control uv the niggers on this.
Wat did the South ever care for Dimokratic successes, 'ceptin
ez it bolstered up their niggers?

I'm discouraged. I see afore me trouble. I see but one or
two streeks uv lite on my horizon. Ohio won't let her niggers
vote no how, and sum other States are in the same fix, and
possibly this ackshen may be the sign uv returnin reason.
Ohio may, after all, be the rock agin wich the waves uv
fanatakism may beet in vane, and conservatism, gatherin
strength there, may finally assert itself elsewhere. May the
Lord send it, for ef this thing goes on, I'm a lost and rooined
man.