"No white man sets in airth's broad aisle
Thet I ain't willin' t' own ez brother,
An' ef he 's heppened to strike ile,
I dunno, fin'ly, but I 'd ruther;
An' Paddies, long 'z they vote all right,
Though they ain't jest a natʼral white,
I hold one on 'em good 'z another.

"Wut is there lef' I'd like to know,
Ef 't aint the defference o' color,
To keep up self-respec' an' show
The human natur' of a fullah?
Wut good in bein' white, onless
It's fixed by law, nut lef' to guess,
We're a heap smarter an' they duller?

"Ef we're to hev our ekle rights,

't wun't du to 'low no competition;
Th' ole debt doo us for bein' whites
Ain't safe onless we stop th' emission
O' these noo notes, whose specie base
Is human natur', 'thout no trace
O' shape, nor color, nor condition.

[Applause.]

[Continood applause.]

"So fur I'd writ an' could n' jedge
Aboard wut boat I'd best take pessige,
My brains all mincemeat, 'thout no edge
Upon 'em more than tu a sessige,
But now it seems ez though I see
Sunthin' resemblin' an idee,

Sence Johnson's speech an' veto message.

"I like the speech best, I confess,

The logic, preudence, an' good taste on 't,
An' it's so mad, I ruther guess

There's some dependence to be placed on 't;

It's narrer, but 'twixt you an' me,
Out o' the allies o' J. D.

A temp'ry party can be based on 't.

"Jes' to hold on till Johnson's thru An' dug his Presidential grave is,

66

[Laughter.}

An' then! - who knows but we could slew
The country roun' to put in?
Wun't some folks rare up when we pull

Out o' their eyes our Union wool

An' larn 'em wut a p'lit'cle shave is !

Oh, did it seem 'z ef Providunce
Could ever send a second Tyler?
To see the South all back to once,
Reapin' the spiles o' the Freesiler,
Is cute ez though an ingineer

Should claim th' old iron for his sheer

Coz 't was himself that bust the biler!" [Gret laughter.]

Thet tells the story! Thet's wut we shall git
By tryin' squirtguns on the burnin' Pit;
For the day never comes when it 'll du
To kick off Dooty like a worn-out shoe.
I seem to hear a whisperin' in the air,
A sighin' like, of unconsoled despair,

Thet comes from nowhere an' from everywhere,

An' seems to say,

66

then,

Why died we? war n't it,

To settle, once for all, thet men wuz men?

Oh, airth's sweet cup snetched from us barely tasted,

The grave's real chill is feelin' life wuz wasted!

Oh, you we lef', long-lingerin' et the door,

Lovin' you best, coz we loved Her the more,

Thet Death, not we, had conquered, we should

feel

Ef she upon our memory turned her heel,

An' unregretful throwed us all away

To flaunt it in a Blind Man's Holiday!"

My frien's, I've talked nigh on to long enough.
I hain't no call to bore ye coz ye 're tough;
My lungs are sound, an' our own v'ice delights
Our ears, but even kebbige-heads hez rights.
It's the las' time thet I shell e'er address ye,
But you'll soon fin' some new tormentor: bless
ye!

[Tumult'ous applause and cries of "Go on! ""Don't stop!"]

NOTES

I AM indebted to Mr. Frank Beverly Williams for these illustrative notes.

FIRST SERIES.

This series of the Biglow Papers relates to the Mexican War. It expresses the sentiment of New England, and particularly of Massachusetts, on that conflict, which in its aim and conduct had little of honor for the American Republic. The war was begun and prosecuted in the interest of Southern slaveholders. It was essential to the vitality of slavery that fresh fields should constantly be opened to it. Agriculture was almost the sole industry in which slaves could be profitably employed. That their labor should be wasteful and careless to preserve the productive powers of the soil was inevitable. New land was ever in demand, and the history of slavery in the United States is one long series of struggles for more territory. It was with this end in view that a colony of roving, adventurous Americans, settled in the thinly populated and poorly governed region now known as Texas, revolted from the Mexican government and secured admission to the Union, thus bringing on the war with Mexico. The Northern Whigs had protested against annexation, but after the war began, their resistance grew more and more feeble. In the vain effort to retain their large Southern constituent, they sacrificed justice to expediency and avoided an issue that would not be put down. The story of the Mexican War is the story of the gradual decline of the great Whig party, and of the growth of that organization, successively known as the Liberty, Free-Soil, and Republican party, whose policy was the exclusion of slavery from all new