University of Virginia Library

13. XIII.
Another Warning. — Profuse Expenditure of Powder
and Torchlight Processions deprecated. —
The President implored to show his Hand.

I NOTICE, all over the North, the Democrisy is
a firin guns, and marchin after brass bands, and
hirin halls for endorsin Androo Johnson. Ez a sentinel
on the watch-tower, I protest!

In the name uv suffrin Kentucky, uv wich State I
am a adopted sitizen, I protest!

In the name uv common sense and ordnary politikle
sagassity, I protest!

Androo Johnson may possibly be on the high road
to Dimocrisy; but, ez yet, what ashoorence hev we?
Am I datin my letters from “Post Orifis, Confedrit
X Roads?” Hez there bin, as yit, any well authenticated
case uv the removal uv a Ablishnist, and the
apintment uv a constooshnel Democrat in his stead?

Not that I hev heard of. Per contrarry, the Ablishnists
— them ez wuz apinted by Linkin — are still
holdin on, ez calm ez a summer mornin, without
any apparent fear uv any change affectin them.

Who pays for the Halls? Who pays the music?
Who pays the Powder? Dimocrats who do these
scent Post Offises in the distanse. Are they like the
the war hoss in Job's writins, who smelled the battle
afar off, and remarked Ha, Ha! to the trumpets?
Let me entreet sich that they kin make a better investment
uv their means.

The cost uv one meetin, put in korn whisky, wood
not only solace theirselves, but start half a dozen
Ablishnists on the road to Dimocrisy.

Men is deceptive. I hev hopes uv Androo Johnson
myself, and principally becoz Vallandigum and
Fernandy Wood hev hopes. Them buzzards kin
smell carrion a long distance, and they are seldom
at fault. In this case, they may be. They base their
hopes on Johnson's speech, at Washington, on the
22d. There may be suthin in it; but ain't it possible
that the stench wich they took for Dimocrisy, and
wich they sposed cum from Johnson, ariz from them
ez surrounded him?

“But,” sez a Dimocrat, whose nose, from long
continued lack of supplies, hez softened down from

a generous crimson to a ghastly bloo, and who
woodent hev a small Post orifis at no price, ef it
wuznt offered him, “look at the class he spoke
to.”

Wat noncents! Androo wuz mad. There wuz
a mass uv bile on hiz politikle stumick wich must
be got rid uv. He had sum nasty things to say, and
it wuz a part uv the eternal fitness uv things that he
shood hev a nasty audience to say em to.

I don't propose to go orf into spasms over the
present sitooashun. Johnson proposes to continoo
the Freedmens' Buro, and hezn't no noshun of repeelin
the test oath, or uv drawin the military out
uv the Dimocratik States. So far as heard from,
we uv the South is still in a stait of abject custitood.
Our habis corpuses wich Linkin took away from us
hevn't bin returned, and we are obleeged to git along
ez best we kin without em. I knocked down a
small nigger yisterday, for the purpus uv assertin
the sooperiority uv the Cauchashun race over the
Afrikin, and wuz to wunst hauled up afore a Freedmen's
Buro, and fined. Our high-toned and chivalrous
members are exclooded from Congris on the
frivolus plea that they wuz kernels and briggydeer
Ginerals in the Confederit servis; and all these outragis

agin Dimocrisy Androo Johnson, by permittin,
absolootly approves.

I could probably swaller all these things. I am a
Dimokrat uv thirty years standin, and, uv course,
hev bin on both sides uv every politikle fence. The
seats of my politikle pants is full of slivers. But,
before I take down these things, I WANT TO
KNOW WHAT I AM GOIN TO GIT FOR
IT. Ef Androo Johnson goes back on his party
and his pledges, he, uv course, asks us to go back
on ourn. In sich transactions, where both parties,
by bein engaged in it at all, confess themselves ruther
a low grade of skoundrels, I think it well enuff to
hev the consideration paid down.

Ef Androo Johnson wants me, he knows the
terms. I am his to command, for a consideration;
ez much so ez is the thousands uv Demokrats who
hev bin, for the past week, gittin up Demonstrations.
But I want suthin to go on. When I hev his permisson,
under the broad seel uv the Post Orfis Department,
to write “P. M.” after my illustrious
name, I shell be prepared to wade in. I hev bin
huntin up several reasons for supportin him. I hev
em all ready. I only want this additional one, and
then I fling my banner to the breeze. Faith is sed
to be the sun of all religious systems. Post Offis

is the central figger in all Democratic creeds — the
theme uv conversation by day, and the staple uv
dreems by night. How long! oh, how long!