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Ha'n't they sold your colored seamen ?
Ha'n't they made your env'ys w'iz ? 1
Wut 'll make ye act like freemen?
Wut 'll git your dander riz?
Come, I'll tell ye wut I'm thinkin'
Is our dooty in this fix,

They'd ha' done 't ez quick ez winkin'
In the days o' seventy-six.

Clang the bells in every steeple,

Call all true men to disown

The tradoocers of our people,
The enslavers o' their own;
Let our dear old Bay State proudly
Put the trumpet to her mouth,
Let her ring this messidge loudly
In the ears of all the South : —

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150

1 South Carolina, Louisiana, and several other Southern States at an early date passed acts to prevent free persons of color from entering their jurisdictions. These acts bore with particular severity upon colored seamen, who were imprisoned, fined, or whipped, and often sold into slavery. On the petition of the Massachusetts Legislature, Governor Briggs, in 1844, appointed Mr. Samuel Hoar agent to Charleston, and Mr. George Hubbard to New Orleans, to act on behalf of oppressed colored citizens of the Bay State. Mr. Hoar was expelled from South Carolina by order of the Legislature of that State, and Mr. Hubbard was forced by threats of violence to leave Louisiana. The obnoxious acts remained in force until after the Civil War. (F. B. Williams, in Riverside and Cambridge Editions.)

Propositions to secede were not uncommon in New England at this time. The rights of the States had been strongly asserted on the acquisition of Louisiana in 1803, and on the admission of the State of that name in 1812. Among the resolutions of the Massachusetts Legislature adopted in 1845, relative to the proposed annexation of Texas, was one declaring that such an act of admission would have no binding force whatever on the people of Massachusetts.'

John Quincy Adams, in a discourse before the New York Historical Society, in 1839, claimed a right for the States to part in friendship with each other... when the fraternal spirit shall give way,' etc. The Garrisonian wing of the Abolitionists notoriously advocated secession. There were several other instances of an expression of this sentiment, but for the most part they were not evoked by opposition to slavery. (F. B. Williams in Riverside and Cambridge Editions.)

Man hed ough' to put asunder
Them thet God has noways jined;
An' I should n't gretly wonder
Ef there's thousands o' my mind.
June 17, 1846.

[The first recruiting sergeant on record I conceive to have been that individual who is mentioned in the Book of Job as going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it. Bishop Latimer will have him to have been a bishop, but to me that other calling would appear more congenial. The sect of Cainites is not yet extinct, who esteemed the first-born of Adam to be the most worthy, not only because of that privilege of primogeniture, but inasmuch as he was able to overcome and slay his younger brother. That was a wise saying of the famous Marquis Pescara to the Papal Legate, that it was impossible for men to serve Mars and Christ at the same time. Yet in time past the profession of arms was judged to be KaT' ¿¿ox that of a gentleman, nor does this opinion want for strenuous upholders even in our day. Must we suppose, then, that the profession of Christianity was only intended for losels, or, at best, to afford an opening for plebeian ambition? Or shall we hold with that nicely metaphysical Pomeranian, Captain Vratz, who was Count Königsmark's chief instrument in the murder of Mr. Thynne, that the Scheme of Salvation has been arranged with an especial eye to the necessities of the upper classes, and that God would consider a gentleman and deal with him suitably to the condition and profession he had placed him in'? It may be said of us all, Exemplo plus quam ratione vivimus.-H. W.]

No. III

WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS GUVENER B. is a sensible man;3

He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;

3 George Nixon Briggs was the Whig governor of Massachusetts from 1844 to 1851. The campaign re ferred to here is that of 1847. Governor Briggs was renominated by acclamation and supported by his party with great enthusiasm. His opponent was Caleh Cushing, then in Mexico, and raised by President Polk to the rank of Brigadier-General. Cushing was de feated by a majority of 14,060. (F. B. Williams.)

30

With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut aint, We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage,

1 John Paul Robinson (1799-1864) was a resident of Lowell, a lawyer of considerable ability, and a thorough classical scholar. He represented Lowell in the State Legislature in 1829, 1830, 1831, 1833, and 1842, and was Senator from Middlesex in 1836. Late in the gubernatorial contest of 1847 it was rumored that Robinson, heretofore a zealous Whig, and a delegate to the recent Springfield Convention, had gone over to the Democratic or, as it was then styled, the 'Loco' camp. The editor of the Boston Palladium wrote to him to learn the truth, and Robinson replied in an open letter avowing his intention to vote for Cushing. (F. B. Williams.)

* General Caleb Cushing.

[The attentive reader will doubtless have perceived in the foregoing poem an allusion to that pernicious sentiment, Our country, right or wrong.' It is an abuse of language to call a certain portion of land, much more, certain personages, elevated for the time being to high station, our country. I would not sever nor loosen a single one of those ties by which we are united to the spot of our birth, nor minish by a tittle the respect due to the Magistrate. I love our own Bay State too well to do the one, and as for the other, I have myself for nigh forty years exercised, however unworthily, the function of Justice of the Peace, having been called thereto by the unsolicited kindness of that most excellent man and upright patriot, Caleb Strong. Patriae fumus igne alieno luculentior is best qualified with this, - Ubi libertas, ibi patria. We are inhabitants of two worlds, and owe a double, not a divided, allegiance. In virtue of our clay, this little ball of earth exacts a certain loyalty of us, while, in our capacity as spirits, we are admitted citizens of an invisible and holier fatherland. There is a patriotism of the soul whose claim absolves us from our other and terrene fealty. Our true country is that ideal realm which we represent to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, and the like. Our terrestrial organizations are but far-off approaches to so fair a model, and all they are verily traitors who resist not any attempt to divert them from this their original intendment. When, therefore, one would have us to fling up our caps and shout with the multitude, 'Our country, however bounded!' he demands of us that we sacrifice the larger to the less, the higher to the lower, and that we yield to the imaginary claims of a few acres of soil our duty and privilege as liegemen of Truth. Our true country is bounded on the north and the south, on the east and the west, by Justice, and when she oversteps that invisible boundary-line by so much as a hair's-breadth, she ceases to be our mother,

1 Mr. R. C. Winthrop, M. C., in a speech at Faneuil Hall, July 4, 1845, said in deprecation of secession: Our country-bounded by the St. John's and the Sabine, or however otherwise bounded or described, and be the measurements more or loss-still our country to be cherished in all our hearts, to be defended by all our hands.' The sentiment was at once taken up and used effectively by the Cotton' Whigs, those who inclined to favor the Mexican War. (F. B. Williams.)

An' buttered, tu, fer sartin; I mean in preyin' till one busts On wut the party chooses, An' in convartin' public trusts To very privit uses.

1 du believe hard coin the stuff
Fer 'lectioneers to spout on;
The people 's ollers soft enough
To make hard money out on;
Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his,
An' gives a good-sized junk to all, -
I don't care how hard money is,

Ez long ez mine 's paid punctooal.

I du believe with all my soul
In the gret Press's freedom,
To pint the people to the goal
An' in the traces lead 'em;
Palsied the arm thet forges yokes
At my fat contracts squintin',
An' withered be the nose thet pokes
Inter the gov'ment printin'!

I du believe thet I should give
Wut's his'n unto Cæsar,
Fer it's by him I move an' live,

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50

Frum him my bread an' cheese air; 60

I du believe thet all o' me

Doth bear his superscription,-
Will, conscience, honor, honesty,
An' things o' thet description.

I du believe in prayer an' praise
To him thet hez the grantin'
O' jobs, in every thin' thet pays,
But most of all in CANTIN';
This doth my cup with marcies fill,
This lays all thought o' sin to rest, 70
I don't believe in princerple,

But oh, I du in interest.

Fer any office, small or gret,
I could n't ax with no face,
'uthout I'd ben, thru dry an' wet,
Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface.

I du believe wutever trash

'll keep the people in blindness,
Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash
Right inter brotherly kindness,
Thet bombshells, grape, an' powder 'n' ball
Air good-will's strongest magnets,
Thet peace, to make it stick at all,
Must be druv in with bagnets.

In short, I firmly du believe
In Humbug generally,

Fer it's a thing thet I perceive
To hev a solid vally;

This heth my faithful shepherd ben,
In pasturs sweet heth led me,
An' this 'll keep the people green
To feed ez they hev fed me.

No. VIII

May 4, 1848.

I SPOSE you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me,

Exacly ware I be myself,

thet the holl o' me.

meanin' by

Wen I left hum, I hed two legs, an' they worn't bad ones neither

(The scaliest trick they ever played wuz bringin' on me hither),

Now one on 'em 's I dunno ware; - they thought I wuz adyin',

An' sawed it off because they said 't wuz kin' o' mortifyin';

I'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I don't see, nuther,

Wy one shoud take to feelin' cheap a minnit sooner 'n t' other,

Sence both wuz equilly to blame; but things is ez they be:

It took on so they took it off, an' thet's enough fer me:

10

There's one good thing, though, to be said about my wooden new one,

1 Birdofredum Sawin' is a fellow-townsman of Hosea Biglow, who wuz cussed fool enuff to goe atrottin inter Miss Chiff arter a Drum and fife,' beguiled by the 'cruetin sarjunt' of Biglow Paper No. I. His first letter is given in No. II.

The liquor can 't git into it ez 't used to in the true one;

So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller could n't beg

A gretter blessin' then to hev one ollers sober peg;

It's true a chap's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum,

But all the march I'm up to now is jest to Kingdom Come.

I've lost one eye, but thet 's a loss it's easy to supply

Out o' the glory thet I 've gut, fer thet is all my eye;

An' one is big enough, I guess, by diligently usin' it,

To see all I shall ever git by way o' pay fer losin' it;

20

Officers I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an' kickins,

Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the fattest pickins;

So, ez the eye's put fairly out, I'll larn to go without it,

An' not allow myself to be no gret put out about it.

Now, le' me see, thet is n't all; I used, 'fore leavin' Jaalam,

To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em: Ware's my left hand? Oh, darn it, yes, I recollect wut's come on 't;

I haint no left arm but my right, an' thet's gut jest a thumb on 't;

It aint so hendy ez it wuz to cal❜late a sum on 't.

I've hed some ribs broke, six (I b'lieve), -I haint kep' no account on 'em; 30 Wen pensions git to be the talk, I'll settle the amount on 'em.

An' now I'm speakin' about ribs, it kin' o' brings to mind

-

One thet I could n't never break, the one I lef' behind;

Ef you should see her, jest clear out the spout o' your invention

An'

pour the longest sweetnin' in about an annooal pension,

An' kin' o' hint (in case, you know, the critter should refuse to be

Consoled) I aint so 'xpensive now to keep ez wut I used to be;

There's one arm less, ditto one eye, an' then the leg thet 's wooden

Can be took off an' sot away wenever ther's a puddin'.

I spose you think I'm comin' back ez opperlunt ez thunder,

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With shiploads o' gold images an' varus sorts o' plunder;

Wal, 'fore I vullinteered, I thought this country wuz a sort o'

Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land flowin' with rum an' water,

Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultivation,

An' gold wuz dug ez taters be among our Yankee nation,

Ware nateral advantages were pufficly amazin',

Ware every rock there wuz about with precious stuns wuz blazin',

Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez thick ez you could cram 'em,

An' desput rivers run about a beggin' folks to dam 'em;

Then there were meetinhouses, tu, chockful o' gold an' silver

50

Thet you could take, an' no one could n't hand ye in no bill fer; – Thet 's wut I thought afore I went, thet 's wut them fellers told us

Thet stayed to hum an' speechified an' to the buzzards sold us;

I thought thet gold-mines could be gut cheaper than Chiny asters,

An' see myself acomin' back like sixty Jacob Astors;

But sech idees soon melted down an' did n't leave a grease-spot;

I vow my holl sheer of the spiles would n't come nigh a V spot;

Although, most any wares we've ben, you need n't break no locks,

Nor run no kin' o' risks, to fill your pocket full o' rocks.

I 'xpect I mentioned in my last some o'the nateral feeturs

60

O' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way o' awfle creeturs,

But I fergut to name (new things to speak on so abounded)

How one day you'll most die o' thust, an' 'fore the next git drownded. The clymit seems to me jest like a teapot made o' pewter

Our Preudence hed, thet would n't pour (all she could du) to suit her;