"Swingin Round the Cirkle.". David Ross Locke
to be a Northern copperhead. The Noo Gersey part I guessed at, becoz, my friend, that State furnished the lowest order uv copperheads of any uv em. Pardon me ef I flatter yoo. But what I wanted to say wus, that I spose suthen hez happened doorin the past 4 years. I was a original secessionist. Sum years ago I hed a hundred niggers, and wuz doin well with em. But, unforchunitly, my brother died, and left me ez much more land, but no niggers. I wanted niggers enuff to work that land, and spozed ef cut off from the North, and the slave-trade wuz reopened, I cood git em cheaper. Hentz I seceshed. Sich men ez Genral McStinger told me the North woodent fight or I woodent hev, secesht, but I did it. I went out for wool and cum back shorn. I seceshed with 100 niggers to git 200, and alas! I find myself back into the old government, with nary a nigger.
“But all this is no excoose for talkin bald noncents. Yoo old ass,” sed he, addressin Genral McStinger, “yoo talk uv wat yoo will do, and what yoo wont. Hevent you diskivered that yoo are whipped? Hevent you found out that yoo are subjoogated? Are yoo back into the Yoonyun uv your own free will and akkord? Hevent yoo got a pardon in yoor pockit, which dockyment is all that saves yoor neck from stretchin hemp? Why do yoo talk uv wat South karliny will and wont do? Good Lord! I recollect about a year since South karliny would never permit her soil 2 be pollutid by Yankee hirelins, yit Sherman marched all over it with a few uv em, and skarcly a gun was fired at em. So too I recollect that that sed State, wich wuz agoin to whip the entire North, and wich wood, ef overpowered, submit gracefully and with dignity to annihilation, and sich, wuz the first to, git down on her marrow bones, and beg for peace like a dorg. Ef yoo intend this talk for the purpose uv skarin the North, beleeve me when I say that the North aint so easy skared ez it wuz. Ef its intendid for home consumption, consider me the people. Ive heard it before, and I’ll take no more uv it until my stumick settles. It makes me puke. The fact is we are whipped, and hev got to do the best we kin. We are a goin to pay the Federal debt, and aint goin to pay the confederet debt. Davis will be hung, and serve him rite. States rites is dead, and slavery is abolished, and with it shivelry; and its my opinion the South is a d——d sight better off without either of em. I kin sware, now, after livin outside uv the shadder uv the flag 4 yeres, that I love it! You bet I do. I carry a small one in my coat pocket. I hev a middlin sized one waved by my youngest boy over the family when at prayers, and a whalin big one wavin over my house all the time. I hev diskivered that its a good thing to live under, and when sich cusses as yoo talk uv what yoo will and wont do under it, I bile. Go home, yoo cusses, go home! Yoo, South, and pullin orf your coat, go to work, thankin God that Johnson’s merciful enuff to let yoo go home at all insted uv hangin yoo up like a dorg, for tryin to bust a Guverment too good for yoo. Yoo, North, thankful that the men uv sense uv the North hed the manhood to prevent us from rooinin ourselves by makin sich ez yoo our niggers. Avaunt!”
And the excited Mr. Maginnis, who is evidently subjoogated, strode out uv our presence. His intemperit talk cast a chill over our confidencis, and we dident resoom with the ease and freedom we commenced with, and in a few minutes we parted. I didn’t like him.
Petroleum V. Nasby,
Lait Paster uv the Church of the New Dispensashun.
III.
A Remarkable Dream.—A Country settled exclusively by Democrats.
Washington, December 1, 1865.
Last nite I was the victim uv another dream. Ef I don’t quit this explorin the realms of the fucher in my sleep, I shall become a second Saint John. Ef so, I maik no doubt my revelations will be uv a remarkably startlin character.
Methawt the Ablishnists had asserted the power we diskivered they possest, after the late elecshuns, and had gone the whole figger. They had forced the South into the humiliashen uv allowin niggers to testify, and in the Northern states had given em the elective franchise. Uv course the edecated and refined democrasy wood never consent to be carried up to the polls alongside uv a nigger—uv course no Democratic offis-seeker wood hoomiliate himself to treatin a nigger afore a election, it bein a article uv faith with us never to drink with a nigger, onless he pays for it.
Therefore, bein helpless, and resolvin never to submit, the heft uv the Democrasy determined to emigrate in a body to some land where the Anglo-Sackson cood rool—where there was no mixter of the disgustin African. Mexico wuz the country chosen, and methawt the entire party, in one solid column, marched there. Our departure was a ovation. The peeple on our route wuz all dressed in white, ez a token uv joy, and from every house hung banners, with inscriptions onto em, sich ez—
“Now is our hen-roosts safe!”
“Canada on its way to Mexico!”
“Poor Mexico—we bewail thy fate!”
Our march resembled very much that uv the childern uv Isrel. Our noses wuz the pillers uv fire by nite, and our breath the piller uv smoke by day.
On our arrival to Mexico, the natives of that country, struck probably with awe at the majestic and flamin expression uv our countenances, hastily gathered up their linen, and silver spoons, and hosses, and sich, and retreated to the mountains. It wuz a kompliment to us that them ez hadn’t ennything remained.
Finally we reached a plain, where we, the modern childern uv Isrel, decided to remane, and, uv course, the fust thing to do wuz to form a guvernment.
Methawt Fernandy Wood, uv New York, wuz chosen viva voce, ez President, and he stept forerd to hev the oath administered to him, wich wuz 2 be dun by the oldest Justis uv the Peece uv the late stait uv Noo Gersey, wich hez committed sooicide. Here a new trouble ensood—there wuzn’t a bible to be found in the whole encampment. The difficulty wuz got over by a New York Alderman yellin out, “Never mind the oath. What’s the yoose uv any oath he takes?” So he wuz declared President.
Prest. Wood then proceeded to organize. He requested sich ez hed held commissions in the army uv the Yoonited States to step forerd three paces. Gens. Micklelan, Buel, Fitsjohn Porter, & Slocum stept forerd, and with em some 4,000, a part uv whom hed held quartermasters’ commissions, and whose accounts,
“Jest afore the battle, mother,”
didn’t balance, but wich alluz did jist after, and others who hed bin dismist for bein in the rear, when their sooperiors desired to see em in the front, and who consekently considered it a d——d Ablishun war, wich they didn’t approve uv no how.
Then hevin ascertained the material for officerin his army, he axed all them who bed bin in the service as privates to step forerd. 20,000 obeyed, and the President asked the fust one where he enlisted, who ansered ez follows:—
“At Noo York, April 12, 1864, bounty $1,000;
and at Philadelphia, April 14, 1864, bounty $700;
and at Pittsburgh, April 16, 1864, bounty $800;
and at Cincernati, April 19, 1864, bounty $400;
and at—”
“Enough,” said Fernandy, and glancin down the line, and seein all the faces were uv the same style and expression, he asked no more uv em any questions.
Remarkin that it wuz well enough to establish a church, he desired all who were ministers uv the Gospel to step forerd. 21 stept out and desired to explain. They cood not say that they were just now in full connexion with any church. They hed bin, but their unconstooshnel Ablishin Synods and conferences hed accoosed em uv irregularities in hoss tradin, and various other irregularities, and suspended em, and silenced em and sich, becoz they were Democrats, but—
The President shrugged his sholders, and asked all who cood read to step out. About one-half answered, and then he requestid sich uv this number ez cood be prevaled upon to accept a small office, and who bleeved theirselves fit, to step out agin, and to my unutterable horror and consternation, every one but five stepped out ez brisk ez so many bees. Immejitly there wuz an uproar. Them ez coodent read swore vociferously that there wuz nothin fair