64. LXIV.
RENOUNCES SLAVERY.
Saint's Rest (wich is in the Stait uv Noo Jersey), }
January the 15th, 1865.
[1]
“The wages uv sin is death.” Sich is the substance uv a
passage uv Skripter, wich, sence my exile to this lonely shore,
hez bin my solace. How troo the remark! How fearfully
hez it bin realized!
The anshent Dimokrasy owned this guverment, and mite hev
hed it to day. But then they wuz a richus set. They wuzn't
dissipatid. They didn't run after harlots. Jaxon, and Benton,
and Silas Write, and sich men, who wuz men, kept us strate.
But wen they went to their respective rewards, another class
uv men occupied us. Jim Bookannon and Jeff Davis took
hold uv the Dimekratic kite, tore off its time-honored tale,
Ekal Rites, and substitootid Slavery. The result is before the
world. Dimokrasy is in the mud, and the Ablishnists hev the
post-orfises. Alass!
In the olden time we used to hear this song: —
“Ho! the car uv emansipashen
Is rollin grandly thro the nashen.”
I've seen the car. It's on two wheels, and carries balls from
6 to 500 pounds in wate. Sherman rode it into Savanner
tother day.
The harder the work yoo do for the devil, the more death
yoo git for wages. We labored faithfully in the service uv
slavery. We dismist our conshenses, went back on our record,
swore black wuz white, and vicy versy, even goin so fur ez to
go into two wars to perpetuate it. What is the result?
Linkin hez abolisht it by proclamation. His blood-coated
hirelins hev abolisht it, niggers and all, wherever they hev
gone, and they hev made sum rather extensive toors. And,
finally, the Confederasy, wich wuz institcoted to preserve it, is
purposin to throw it overboard ez the price uv recognishen,
and this they do without stoppin to enquire wat is to bekum
uv us Northern Dimekrats, who hev tied ourselves to it.
So reckless sailors fling overboard a priceless cargo, to save
a worthless hulk. So Jonah wuz histed into the bilin waves,
to save a set uv mariners who wuz not prophets. Wood, O
wood that I, like him, cood be gobbled by some friendly whale,
who wood, in doo time, vomit me out on dry land.
Slavery wuz a huge Juggernaut. Jest so long ez we Northern
Dimekrats lade flat in the mud afore its wheels, we wuz
not injured, but merely shoved further into the mire, puttin us,
however, in the eggsact posishun to ketch the ile that dript
frum the axels. But it finally mashed us.
Ez for me, I am done. I'm a anti-slavery man from this time
out. My conshence won't allow me to support it no longer,
and, besides, it don't pay. Ez the sole survivin leader uv the
Dimokrasy, I shel immejitly ishoo a circular, instructin uv em
to make this change uv front.
Petroleum V. Nasby,
Lait Paster uv the Church uv the Noo Dispensashun.
