'Taint afollerin' your bell-wethers Wut's the use o' meetin'-goin' Feller-men like oats an' rye ? Trainin' round in bobtail coats, But it's curus Christian dooty This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats. Wy, it's jest ez clear ez figgers, Clear ez one an' one make two, 50 60 70 Wal, go 'long to help 'em stealin' Bigger pens to cram with slaves, Help the men thet 's ollers dealin' Insults on your fathers' graves; Chaps thet make black slaves o' nig- Help the strong to grind the feeble, gers Want to make wite slaves o' you. 110 Help the many agin the few, Help the men thet call your people Witewashed slaves an' peddlin' crew! 120 Massachusetts, God forgive her, She's akneelin' with the rest,1 She, thet ough' to ha' clung ferever In her grand old eagle-nest; She thet ough' to stand so fearless W'ile the wracks are round her hurled, Holdin' up a beacon peerless To the oppressed of all the world! 1 An allusion to the governor's call for troops as well as to the vote on the War Bill. On May 11, 1846, the President sent to the House of Representatives his well-known message declaring the existence of war brought on by the act of Mexico,' and asking for a supply of $10,000,000. Of the seven members from Massachusetts, all Whigs, two, Robert C. Winthrop, of Boston, and Amos Abbott, of Andover, voted for the bill. The Whigs throughout the country, remembering the fate of the party which had opposed the last war with England, sanctioned the measure as necessary for the preservation of the army, then in peril by the unauthorized acts of the President. (F. B. Williams, in Piverside and Cambridge Editions.) 131 Ha'n't they sold your colored seamen ? They'd ha' done 't ez quick ez winkin' Clang the bells in every steeple, Call all true men to disown The tradoocers of our people, 140 150 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.) 2 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 [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 more congenial. The sect of appear 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' çox 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 Caleb Cushing, then in Mexico, and raised by President Polk to the rank of Brigadier-General. Cushing was defeated by a majority of 14,060. (F. B. Williams.) 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!'1 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.) Purvidin' I'm in office; Fer I hev loved my country sence My eye-teeth filled their sockets, An' Uncle Sam I reverence, Partic❜larly his pockets. I du believe in any plan O' levyin' the texes, Ez long ez, like a lumberman, I go free-trade thru thick an' thin, I du believe it's wise an' good An' orthydox conditions; - The place 'ould jest about fit. I du believe in special ways 20 3C 2 This was written just after the Revolution of 1848 in France, when the monarchy of Louis Philippe was overthrown. 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 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, Frum him my bread an' cheese air; 60 I du believe thet all o' me Doth bear his superscription, — I du believe in prayer an' praise But oh, I du in interest. 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: 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. |