University of Virginia Library

15. XV.
The Patriarchal System. — An Affecting Appeal
in Behalf of a Friend.

YESTERDAY I happened to pick up a kopy
uv a friteful depraved Ablishin paper, and my
horror-stricken eyes wuz glued to the follerin passage,
which I read: —

“I am happy to state to you that our free negroes
are doing finely. We have no trouble with them.
They have all gone to work manfully. They give
an impetus to trade that we never before had. I
have sold John Guttle's negroes, this year and last,
more goods than I ever sold Guttle, and he owned
two hundred and fifty slaves. So you see the free
negro system is working well with us.”

Ez I peroozed them lines, tears started involuntarily
from my beamin eyes, and coursed in torrents
down my venerable cheeks. I know John Guttle

well, I may say intimately. He wuz a dear friend,
— one uv the few wich I kall friend in the most
catholic and comprehensive sense uv the word. He
holds my note fur eighteen dollars and 63 cents; and
I hev sumwhere among my papers, wich I have
alluz carefully preserved for reference, a memorandum
uv his address, that I might be shoor not to
forget to send it to him. I give him the note becoz
he furnished the paper, and it made him easy in his
mind — I put down the memorandum bekoz it
looked business-like. Benevolence is a prominent
trait in my karacter. When givin my note for
borrered money will do a man good, I never begrudge
the trouble uv writin it.

But wat I wuz a goin to say wuz, that the feendishnis
uv that item passes belief. The writer puts
it in print to show that the Ablishn uv slavry benefitted
sumbody. I grant him that the merchant,
who undoubtedly wuz born in Massachusetts, wuz
benefitted by the change; so are the greesy mechanics
who are now pollutin the soil uv Alabama; and
so, probably, are the 250 niggers; but, in the name
uv Liberty, in the name uv Justice, in the name uv
the Constertooshun uv the Yoonited States, and the
flag uv our Common Country, I ask, How about
John Guttle?

John Guttle is robbed. John Guttle is deprived
uv his property. The bred is taken from John Guttle's
mouth; his staff is broken; his dependence is
gone; he is bereft.

Never shall I forget John Guttle or his hospitable
mansion, ez I knowed it in the happy year afore the
crooel war. He wuz a gentleman uv the old skool
— one uv the few left us in these degenerate days.
His home wuz wun uv unalloyed happiness. Situated
just back uv Mobeel, he had the finest plantashun
in that section, and hed on it 250 niggers. All
shades wuz represented. There wuz the coal-black
Cuffee, whose feechers denoted the pure Afrikin,
and whose awkward manners showed that he wuz
not long from Afrika. There wuz the civilized mulatto,
in whose veins the Guttle blood showed; the
quadroon, in whom the good old Guttle blood predominated;
and the octoroon, which wuz mostly
Guttle. The Guttleses wuz eminently a Christian
generation. They wuz devoutly pious; and there
never wuz one uv the name who cood not repeat,
without the book, all uv the texts bearin on slavery.
The passages in which Onesimus and Hager figger
wuz favorites with em; but on “cussid be Canaan”
they wuz strong. For generations they had mourned
over the hard fate uv the sons uv Ham, doomed to

perpetooal bondage becoz uv the sin uv their father;
and with a missionary spirit ekaled by few and excelled
by none, they did their part towards redoosin
that cuss, by makin ez many of em ez possible halfbruthers
to the more favored race uv Japhet, and
thus bringing uv em out uv the cuss; and they had
mellered the color uv their charges down from the
hideous black to a bright yeller. Under the old
patriarkle system, time passed orf smoothly and
pleasantly with the Guttle family. Them 250 niggers
wuz obliged, uv course, to work, and their labor
wuz money. John bought each uv the male
sons uv Ham too soots uv close per annum, and
each uv the female sons uv Ham one soot. It wuz
considered healthy for the young ones to go naked,
which they wuz religiously allowed to do, ez none
uv the Guttles uv that family wood do any thing
agin nater or her laws. The girls hed pianos, and
wuz educated at the North; the boys wuz celebrated
for horse racing and their skill at losin money at
faro. They wuz hospitable and generous to a fault.
Their house wuz open house, and their beverages
wuz alluz the best. Money wuz no objick to them;
for when they had a severe attack of poker, or faro,
or hoss racin, they hed plenty uv octoroons and
quadroons, with the real Guttle nose, wich brand
wuz well known in Noo Orleans, and wood alluz
command the highest possible figger that wuz paid
in that market; or, ef they had no more than they
wanted at home uv that style, why, a few field hands
wood be sold, and the remainin ones wood be persuaded
by the overseer to do the work uv the whole.
John Guttle's sons wuz all in the Confederit army.
His daughters, willin to sacrifice every thing fur the
cause, heroically pledged theirselves to whip the
niggers theirselves doorin their absence.

Now all is changed! A shadder hez fallen across
that peaceful home. The nigger quarters is there,
but the niggers is not. The broad plantashun is divided
up into small farms, and half uv it is owned
by Ablishnists from the North, who work theirselves,
and who hev a meetin house on one corner uv it,
and the niggers a skool house on the tother. The
race track is plowed up and in cotton; the whippin-post
and the stocks is taken down and burned; all,
all the evidences uv civilizashun hez faded afore the
ruthless hand of the invader. John Guttle — that
generous old man — subsists by the labor uv his own
hands. One uv his sons ekes out a miserable existence
running a dray in Mobeel; another, who is
gifted with no ordinary intelleck, earns a respectable
livin playin seven-up, in a small way, with his former

niggers; and the two girls is runnin a sewing
masheen.

Talk not to me uv benefits. What is a dozen
tradesmen and two hundred and fifty niggers to the
gellorious old Dimocratic John Guttle? What is
the interest uv a dozen or so uv Noo England mechanics,
and the niggers aforesaid, when compared
to that glorious aristocracy which can never exist
beside em? Kin I go and borrer eighteen dollars
and sixty-three cents uv one uv them? No. Becoz,
working for their paltry livins, they place a higher
valyoo on money, and will not spread it around ez
profoosely ez the noble race which preceded em.

Another great wrong is done in this settin free uv
John Guttle's niggers. John Guttle hez, uv course,
no further interest in the Dimocratic party. Slavery
wuz the umbillikle cord which united the Southern
slaveholder and the Northern Dimocrat; and, that
cord cut, why hez John Guttle any more interest in
Dimocracy? We stood ez a Chinese wall between
them and the rushin flood uv Ablishn fanaticism;
and we made the wall biznis pay. They furnished
money, and we did the work; and, there bein but
few uv us, the orfisis wuz easily divided. Alas! our
okepashin's gone. The South is forever lost to us;
for she has no dirty work for us to do.

I appeal to the Yoonited States uv America. In
behalf uv John Guttle, I say, give him back his
niggers. In behalf uv the Dimocrisy North who
are out uv employment, give him back his niggers.
In behalf uv his son who is runnin a dray, give him
back his niggers. In behalf uv his daughters runnin
a sewin machine, give him back his niggers. Make
things Normal agin. Like John the Baptist, the
Government shall hear the voice uv one howlin in
the wilderness until all these is done.