70. LXX.
THE ASSASSINATION.
Saint's Rest (wich is in the Stait uv Noo Jersey), }
April the 20th, 1865.
[1]
The nashen mourns! The hand uv the vile assassin hez bin
raised agin the Goril — the head uv the nashen, and the people's
Father hez fallen beneath the hand uv a patr — vile
assassin.
While Aberham Linkin wuz a livin, I need not say that I did
not love him. Blessed with a mind uv no ordinary dimensions,
endowed with all the goodness uv Washinton, I alluz bleeved
him to hev bin guilty uv all the crimes uv a Nero.
No man in Noo Jersey laments his untimely death more than
the undersined. I commenst weepin perfoosely the minit I
diskivered a squad uv returned soljers comin round the corner,
who wuz a forcin constooshnel Dimekrats to hang out
mournin.
Troo, he didn't agree with me, but I kin overlook that — it
wuz his misforchoon. Troo, he hung unoffendin men, in Kentucky,
whose only crime wuz in bein loyal to wat they deemed
their guverment, ez tho a man in this free country coodent
choose wich guverment he'd live under. Troo, he made coldblooded
war, in the most fiendish manner, on the brave men uv
the South, who wuz only assertin the heaven-born rite uv roolin
theirselves. Troo, he levied armies, made up uv pimps, whose
chiefest delite wuz in ravishin the wives and daughters uv the
South, and a miscellaneous burnin their houses. Troo, he kept
into offis jist sich men ez wood sekund him in his hell-begotten
skeems, and dismist every man who refused to becum ez depraved
ez he wuz. Troo, he wood read uv these scenes uv
blood and carnage, and in high glee tell filthy anecdotes; likewise
wood he ride over the field uv battle, and ez the wheels
uv his gorjus carriage crushed into the shuddrin earth the
bodies uv the fallen braves, sing Afrikin melodies. Yet I, in
common with all troo Dimekrats, weep! We weep! We wish
it to be distinkly understood, we weep! Ther wuz that in him
that instinktively forces us to weep over his death, and to
loathe the foul assassin who so suddenly removed so much
loveliness uv character. He hed ended the war uv oppression
— he hed subjoogatid a free and brave people, who were strugglin
for their rites, and hed em under his feet; but I, in common
with all Dimekrats, mourn his death!
Hed it happened in 1862, when it wood hev been uv sum
use to us, we wood not be so bowed down with woe and anguish.
It wood hev throwd the guverment into confusion, and probably
hev sekoored the independence uv the South.
But, alas! the tragedy cum at the wrong time!
Now, we are saddled with the damnin crime, when it will
prodoose no results. The war wuz over. The game wuz up
when Richmond wuz evacuated. Why kill Linkin then? For
revenge? Revenge is a costly luxury — a party so near bankrupt
ez the Dimokrasy cannot afford to indulge in it. The
wise man hez no sich word ez revenge in his dictionary — the
fool barters his hope for it.
Didst think that Linkin's death wood help the South? Linkin's
hand wuz velvet — Johnson's may be, to the eye, but to
the feel it will be found iron. Where Linkin switched, Johnson
will flay. Where Linkin banished, Johnson will hang.
Davis wuz shocked when he heard it — so wuz I, and, in
common with all troo Dimekrats, I weep.
Petroleum V. Nasby,
Lait Paster uv the Church uv the Noo Dispensashun.
