The Patriarchal System.--An Affecting Appeal in Behalf of a Friend.
CONFEDRIT × ROADS
(wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky),
March 19, 1866.
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
half-brothers 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 nobble 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.
PETROLEUM V. NASBY,
Lait Paster uv the Church uv the Noo Dispensashun.