^^^ 
 
E 685 
 
 .ni4 
 
 Copy 1 
 
 ISHED BY THE TOLEDO BLA.DE CO., TOLEDO, OHIO. PRICE, TEN CENTS. 
 
 COHFESSIOIJS OP A REPEHTAlTr POLITICIAN 
 
 A- Story of Fifty Years Hence. 
 
 TIME, A. D. 1930. 
 
 Author of 
 
 Andersonville: a Story of Southern Prisons;" "A File 
 of Infantrymen." 
 
 [COI*YR,IG-MT, 1S80.] 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THK PRIDE THAT GOK TH BEFORE A. FALL. 
 
 ' Yer', my dear grandson, you eurmise 
 cO:.*rectly. , I can remember the com- 
 mencement of this most unhappy epoch. 
 I can remember when, in its internal 
 prosperity and the esteem of foreign 
 powers, this was the foremost Nition of 
 all the world, instead of being, as now, 
 ground in tearful huaailiaiion between 
 fae upper and nether millstones of mis- 
 '-lie a home and dishonor abroad. And 
 there is a wormwood in that remem- 
 braEC'3 that has embittered every day of 
 my 50 years of manhood, for it was I 
 and such as I who are alone responsible 
 for having brot about the woeful 
 change." 
 
 "You, grandpa? Why, that cannot 
 be?" 
 
 ' But it is true, little as you may be 
 able to understand it. God alone knows 
 
 KoTE.— In the spelling of this story many of 
 the reforms urged by the Spelling Reformers 
 have beeu adoptei, in order to make ic conform 
 more nearly to its alleged date when all those 
 ^%f orms, and more too, will doubtless be in com- 
 mon use. 
 
 how fervently I have wisht it were oth- 
 erwise. Ha, too, only knows the myriad 
 of excuses and apologies with which I 
 have attempted to palliate in my own 
 eyes my share in precipitating that 
 deluge of woes upon a smiling land. 
 Put tiat cushioned ottoman under my 
 swollen rignt foot. There I there! steady 
 now; that'll do. Thanks. Heavensl who 
 would have thot so many gouty twinges 
 lurkt beneath the sweet bouquet of those 
 delightful Lake Erie wines? Now, that 
 my eyes and ears ms^y have rest too, 
 hurl at that Wagnerian organ -grinder's 
 head yon cup, decorated as a present 
 for my 72nd birthc^ay by your maiden 
 aunt's too tardily trained fingers. Ah, 
 you didn't hit him; (no young man can 
 throw well since the introduction of 
 curved pitchint^,) but I hear the cup 
 shiver on the pavement, and the 'Death 
 Wail of the Valkyries' ceases, so there is 
 much gained. Now sit dawn, and I 
 will try to tell you the lamentable atory. 
 "It was just a half a century ago. Ex 
 cept that 'Pinafore' had prevailed thru 
 the States for three successive seasons, 
 and in some badly-smitten sections the 
 
.-Cr, 
 
 2 
 
 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMKRICAN REPUBLIC 
 
 'Turkish Patrol' had followed as a sec- 
 ondary consequence, the country was 
 enjoying the most remarkable season ol 
 prosperity it had ever known. For 20 
 glorious years the Rt publicans had been 
 in power, and had ruled the land as the 
 Judges had the seed ol Abraham in Is 
 rael's palmiest days. Their wars had 
 been like the struggles ol the elements; 
 thtir peace the teeming of fruitful Sum- 
 mer beneath benignant skies. Their 
 drawing of the sword was as the calling 
 down the wrath of God upon the injus- 
 tice of the mighty and wrongdoing in 
 high places. Their triumphs were the 
 victories of purer manners, better laws. 
 At each the Nation made a grand 
 stride forward, and their opponents, 
 who had vainly essayed to check the 
 wheels of progress, gnasht their teeth in 
 rage, and yelled maledictions, but always 
 ended by running forward to the new 
 position gained, and again bracing their 
 shoulders against the advancing car. 
 
 •'It is hard to believe that this was 
 only 50 years ago It would seem that since 
 then there had swept over us such cen- 
 turies of desolation as rolled over wealthy 
 and well peopled Asia Minor in the 
 shadow of the horsetail banners of the 
 canquering Tuiks. But the application 
 of a very rudimentary rule of arithmetic 
 shows me that between 1880 and 1930 
 can be but 50 years, and besides your 
 grandmother has made not a few pre- 
 parations for the celebration of our 
 rapidly approaching golden wedding. 
 
 "Half a century ago I was where you 
 are to day — at the dawn of that man- 
 hood in wnich Mr. Bulwer turgidly in- 
 forms us there is no such word as 
 'fail.' I was 21. My principal posses- 
 sions were an undivided interest in the 
 affections of a sweet girl graduate, and 
 a stock of self-sufficiency enuf to inflate 
 the biggest balloon you ever saw. Ah, 
 how much I knew— or thot I did, which 
 amounts to the same thing. I felt a 
 genuine pity for those who did not at 
 once perceive the full extent of. my in- 
 tellectual superiority, and it saddened 
 me to think of their humiliation when 
 some of my future achievements should 
 awaken them to a recognition of their 
 blindness concerning my merits. 
 
 "No, do not redden. That is a feeling 
 common to youth of that ag«. It has 
 
 always been, and doubtless always will be 
 so. It comes to the young man a little 
 in advance of his first mustache, and 
 b( gins to vanish rapidly in those stUi 
 hours of the night, when, in night shirt 
 and slippers he paces the chilly floor with 
 his howling first born, and attempts to 
 soothe the Utile shricker's tortured 
 bowels by drafts from his mother's kid- 
 glove cleaning berzine, mistaken for 
 balm bringing paregoric. 
 
 ' Sach was my confidence in my own 
 infallibility that when I came to cast my 
 first vote I not only rejected advice and 
 counsel, but I scorned them as reflec- 
 tions upon my sense and judgment, 
 and was the rather impelled to act coun- 
 ter thereto. 
 
 "It seemed to me that things had hith- 
 erto gone on in the world in a very un- 
 satisfactory, slip shod fashion, while 
 waiting for clear sighted young reform- 
 ers like myself to arise and set them 
 aright. Now, again I beg that you will not 
 blush so. These are not personal allu- 
 sions. They are generalizations, con- 
 ceived first subjectively, and afterwards 
 broadened by observation, until they 
 were found to comprise all mankind in 
 what may be termed the beginning of the 
 gUk Hat and Switch Cane Age. 
 
 " I had become very weary of the de- 
 nunciation of the Democratic party as an 
 organization of evil and designing men — 
 who had done great wrongs, and medi- 
 tated still greater ones. It seemed pre- 
 posterous to nold them accountable for 
 things done 10 or 20 years before — and to 
 insist that because some of their number 
 held once made mistakes the whole party 
 should be forever barred from place and 
 power. 
 
 "It was in vain that my father, who had 
 been Colonel of an infantry regiment 
 during the War of the Rebellion, strove 
 to bring me once more into accordance 
 with his views. It was in vain that he 
 recounted to me again the wicked deeds 
 of the party in support of Slavery, and 
 its myriad heinous acts during the War — 
 the acts of those in the South who sup- 
 ported the Rebellion with arms, and in 
 the field— the acts of those in the Nortti 
 who crawled in the slime of treason, nke 
 the foul serpents thojr were, and struck 
 with poisonous fangs at the heels of tne 
 defenders of the Nation. 
 
 4 
 
C0NKES8IONS OF A Uh,PJiNTAM" I'oLI litl.\'<i, 
 
 "He was a good man, and I honored 
 him; tbat he had been wise in his day 
 and generation I well knew; but I was 
 equally certain that the newer, higher 
 light vouchsafed me made that day and 
 generation very obsolete. I had even the 
 temerity to say to him, one day, at the 
 close of a heated discussion: 
 
 " 'It is quite natural for you to feel as 
 you do. The loss of your leg at Chic- 
 amauga, and the starving to death in Au- 
 dersonville of Uncle Ned naturally em- 
 bittered both you and mother very much, 
 but— (here 1 walkt over to the parlor 
 mirror and studied my downy mustach 
 with complacent satisfaction) these rank- 
 ling animosities are unworthy of our no- 
 bler manhood. They are quite out of 
 place in those who aspure to be consid- 
 ered as the cultured men of today. It 
 belongs to us of heroic views to assuage 
 the smoldering embers of that unhappy 
 time, and Wipe Out all traces of Sectional 
 Bitterness,' and I daintily rearranged 
 my hair, which I had not yet been able 
 to accustom to being parted in the 
 middle. 
 
 "But once before — when the news came 
 that a dear friend of my father's had de- 
 ceived him, — had I seen there such a 
 look as now came into his face. 
 
 " 'Is it possible that a son of mine has 
 learned to prate this cant of treason so 
 glibly?' he said in amazement. 
 
 " 'Excuse me, father," said I, haught- 
 ily. 'Treason' is a very harsh term to 
 apply to such political sentiments as do 
 not exactly accord with your own. It is 
 growing very much out of fashion in the 
 best circles.' 
 
 " 'It is possibly presumption in me to 
 inquire what circles you have discovered 
 that are so superior to those your father 
 and his friends move in?' he said, with 
 a sneer that lasht me until I forgot the 
 respect due him, and answered holly ; 
 
 "You are perfectly right to ask, and I 
 am glad to have the opportunity of in- 
 forming you. They are composed of 
 those who have out grown the hatreds of 
 of War, and who, with enlarged views 
 and true generosity, believe in drawing 
 the vail of oblivion over the past mis- 
 takes of our once erring brethren, and 
 so restore place and fraternal feeling to 
 our country. To feel as you feel was 
 probably quite rigfet in 1864, but you 
 
 will \ ( urself sometimes see that it is ex 
 ceedingly out of place in 188n. I am 
 sorry to pait company wih jou pol- 
 itically, but, I feel that the ri.siDg gener- 
 ation to which I beloEg is to be more 
 progressive than any of its predecessor*, 
 and that one of our highest missions is 
 to heal our Country's wounds and hurts, 
 and Wipe Out Sectional Bitterness, 
 which, you must admit you have sii^nally 
 failed to do.' 
 
 " 'Great Heavens! to think the terrible 
 lessons of the past should so soon be for- 
 gotten I" said my father with heartfelt 
 sorrow. 
 
 " 'Ghost of JuHus Caesar," I retorted, 
 " 'why is it that some people never karn 
 or forgtt anything? and the stock of 
 ideas that they get in youth is made to 
 last them their whole lives? This is what 
 bars the way of all progress.' 
 
 "The pressure of a half idea upon a 
 young brain always destroys its balance," 
 said he, sorrowfully. 
 
 "And an old one can never recover 
 from warps received in earlier years," I 
 returned. 
 
 This discussion with my father was a 
 sample of the many I had with others 
 who, like him, viewed with amazement 
 and pain my departure from the path 
 which the terrible experience of the past 
 had mapt out for them as the only one 
 which led away from untold evila 
 
 But the more they labored with me, the 
 more boundless became my self-conceit, 
 the more inflexible became my determi- 
 nation to adhere to the plan I had mariLt 
 out for myself — the more confident my 
 belief that by so doing I would inau- 
 gurate a glorious career for myself that 
 would overwhelm these old fogies with 
 confusion, and place me at one bound 
 among the most honored and applauded 
 of the Nation. Ah, what glories gild 
 and spangle youth's radiant realm of 
 imagination 1 
 
 "Of course, many like me were to be 
 found everywhere. The whole genera- 
 tion which had then arrived at a voting 
 age had been born about tne time that 
 the War began. It had past its whole 
 infancy in childish unconsciousness of 
 vhe agony— brot on by D ^mocratic sin— 
 ihat was then cracking the heartstrings of 
 the people. It had prattled over its spelling 
 
 Npks and marbles while the Nation was 
 
liECLlNE AND FALL OF THE AMERICA.N REPUBLIC. 
 
 undergoing the fierce pangs of the after- 
 birth of Reconetructiou, and dallied with 
 its base ball and incipient flirtations while 
 Tiesumption was b.ing fought to the bit- 
 ter end. Only after the victory had 
 htGL flually won did it awaken lo the 
 consideration of public affairs, and then 
 it j<^3ted at scars as all do who never 
 felt a wound. The lingering smoke of 
 the battle offended its esthetic nostrils. 
 The earnestness of the victors in the 
 heady fight jarred upon its teachings 
 of 'gentleoainly repose.' The denun- 
 ciations of the wicked malign ants whose 
 wrong doings had caused 30 years of 
 miserable turmoil, grked upon it as 
 ungenerous cruelty to a fallen foe. I 
 would have none of it. 
 
 "That year the eleCions were exceed- 
 ingly close. The campaign opened with 
 the acceptance on both sides of the fact 
 that the Solid South would furnish, by 
 its usual methods of fraud and violence, 
 138 of the 185 electoral votes necessary 
 to elect the Democratic candidate. It 
 would require the most skilful manage- 
 ment by the Republicans to prevent him 
 gaining the remaining 50 in New York, 
 Connecticut or Indiana. 
 
 "The coterie of which I was a repre- 
 sentative saw our opportunity. Doing 
 cur duty as R'^publicans we would at- 
 tract no attention— receive no thankp. 
 Transferring ourselves to the Democracy 
 we would make a flurry, gain notoriety, 
 acd demonstrate oui selves to be men of 
 great consequence. I have already told 
 you enuf of our characteristics to indi- 
 cate to you our choice. We threw our- 
 selves into the arms of the Democracy. 
 "A. few fitful weeks followed, chiefly 
 marked in my remembrance by the ex- 
 travagant eulogiums of us in the Demo- 
 cratic press as young men of the 'most 
 magnificent promise' (the promise to 
 vote fer Hancock being that doubtless 
 referred to) and by a perfect nightmare 
 of undesirable acquaintances, each one 
 of whom extended to us congratulations 
 upon our joining in the great work of 
 Wiping Out Sectional Bitterne.-s— con- 
 gratulations so unpleasantly flavored 
 with cheap whisky and poor cigars, as 
 to disagree with us as badly as the 
 nouns and verbs of their decomposed 
 English did with each other. 
 
 "The end was that Hancock n 
 
 elected by a small majority and that 
 msjirity. there was no doubt.wae our gift 
 to the Democracy. 
 
 " 'We have begun our political life 
 most gloriously,' I said to one of my 
 cronies the morning after the result waa 
 announced. ' It is a beginning com- 
 mensurate with our exceptional abili- 
 ties.' 
 
 " 'Yes,' he returned. ' The country 
 owes us a debt of gratitude, which it can 
 only repay by honoring us forever as the 
 young men who had the sagacity and 
 moral courage to Wipe Out Sectional 
 Bitterness.' 
 
 "My heart smote me somewhat as I saw 
 the paralyzing fear that seized upon 
 business men at the knowledge that the 
 country was once more in the hands of 
 the Democracy, but I laughed this off 
 as a bit of old fogyism that would soott 
 pass away. " 
 
 CHA.PTER XL 
 
 THE FALL. 
 
 "A. few evenings after the election the 
 voters had a jollification meeting. My- 
 self and friend — in the abundance of our 
 self conceit — imagined that this was ea- 
 pecially meant for us, as the ones whose 
 agency in securing the triumph was most 
 marked and potent. I and they pre- 
 pared our minds to bear with proper 
 modesty the blushing honors that would 
 be heaped thickly upon us. I elaborated 
 for the occasion a speech of wonderful 
 ornateness, in which the grandeur of 
 Wiping Out S.ecliODal Bitterness was ad- 
 mirably illustrated by copious references 
 to the histories of Greece and Rome. 
 That at the conclusion of the mighty 
 forensic effort the enraptured audience 
 would carry me on their shoulders to my 
 resiaecce, accompanied with a magnifi- 
 cent torchlight and brass band 
 pageant, seemed eo probable an 
 event that I expended the last remnant 
 of my allowance in providing a supply 
 cigars and beveiages with fhich to re- 
 gale my admirers at my father's house. 
 
 'The evening found me on my way to 
 the m(.'eting attired in a faultless evening 
 costume, and nervously running my 
 magnificent periods over in my mind. 
 
 "Such a sight as greeted me on arriv- 
 ing at the place of meeting. The yelling 
 hooting, turbulent m9b gathered there 
 
 / 
 
CONFESSIONS OF A REPENTANT POLITICIAN. 
 
 eiibraced every man in the community 
 who was obnoxious to it, who was carry- 
 ing on a more or less open war against 
 society, and who was offensively re- 
 garded by bis neighbors. They were all 
 present — all intoxicated with the victory 
 which they took to be their personal suc- 
 cess: all arrogant and domineering as 
 such people are in the moment of 
 triumph, all carried away with the ex- 
 pectation of the plunder they were about 
 to gain. 
 
 "They reeled and staggered and 
 shouted about in the murky smoke 
 beaten down from the blazing oil barrels 
 by the soughing November winds; at 
 one instant the ruddy flames lighted up 
 their distorted visages with an unearthly 
 glare, then they faded into the obscurity 
 of a pall of smoke. I shuddered. It 
 seemed to be too unreal for anything but 
 a horrible dream. 
 
 "Near one of the flres a rude platform 
 was erected for the accommodation of 
 the orators of the evening. I could 
 hardly restrain an expression of intense 
 disgust as I saw seated thereon as Chair- 
 man of the meeting the man who, of all 
 others, was most distasteful to the com- 
 munity, for against him as a chie? doer, 
 was charged all the crimes that made 
 the Democracy odiims during the pre- 
 ceding quarter of a century. As Deputy 
 United States Marshal under Buchanan 
 he had ferreted out from her hiding 
 place m the house of a kindly old 
 QU'iker, a beautiful young quadroon 
 who had fled from Kentucky because 
 her master— whom she so much resem- 
 bled in face, as to quite explain some 
 incidents in the life ol her handsome 
 mulatto mother— bad sold her under the 
 diBtresE of a gambling debt, to add to 
 the completeness of a rich old Louisiani- 
 an's harem. Rtvolver in hand he had 
 dragged the manacled and shrieking girl 
 thru the streets of the Village, and, not 
 content with wrecking her young life, 
 he had \i3ited the fearful penalties of 
 the Fugitive Slave Law upon the human 
 Quaker, sending him to the Peniten- 
 tiary, his htart broken wife to the grave, 
 and his impovtribhea children l» 
 eat the bread of charity in the 
 hemes of strangers. More than 
 one treacherous assault against returned 
 soldiers, more than one midnight con- 
 
 spiracy as a Son of Liberty had been 
 charged against him during the War; 
 more than one criminal intrigue to ren 
 der its results abortive had been laid at 
 his door since the close of the struggle, 
 but he had still lived on as a monument 
 to the mercy and long f uffering of the 
 community. Now his face, which, ever 
 since I could remember him, had borne 
 the scowl of the baflitd conspirer, 
 gleamed with the light of triumph. As 
 I approached he concluded the speech he 
 makirg to the applauding crowd with: 
 
 " 'And now, gentlemen, let me once 
 more congratulate you upon our grand 
 success, which intures the Wiping Out 
 of Sectional Bitterness, the return of the 
 Country to tne control of its proper 
 rulers— the Democratic party, and a re- 
 storation of the good old days of Frank- 
 lin Pierce and James Buchanan' — 
 
 •' 'When Treasury-plundering was a 
 profession, and nigger hunting a gentle- 
 manly practice.' said a rash Republican 
 in thecruvvd, who was promptly knockt 
 down and kickt into insensibility. 
 
 " 'All that we have long desired, strug- 
 gled for, suffered for,'— continued the 
 chairman, 'frequently despaired of at- 
 taining, is now coming to pass. The 
 triumph of Jeffersonian principles is as- 
 sured' — 
 
 " 'That's it. — no more taxes on whisky,' 
 interrupted a voice. 
 
 " 'No, — nor onterbacker,' said another. 
 
 " 'An' naygurs to be shtopt from vot- 
 ing,' said a third, whom I recognized as 
 a man whose naturalization papers I had 
 completed the day before the election. 
 
 " 'An' be put back on the plantations 
 where they belong, instid of comin' up 
 here to take away the work from poor 
 men,' saidafourtn, whose support from 
 the time whereof the memory of man 
 ran not to the contrary, was rubbed out 
 of an unyielding wash board by his wife's 
 calloused knuckles. 
 
 "1 recoiled from the sentiments and 
 shrank from the persons of the meeting, 
 but a thot of my speech urged me for- 
 ward again. 
 
 "The Chairman caught sight of me, 
 and divining the purpose with which I 
 had attended the meeting, said with a 
 sinister leer: 
 
 " 'Gentlemen, our talented young 
 friend, Madoc Lawrence — who joined 
 
6 
 
 LECLFNE AUD FALL OK THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC 
 
 U8 at the eleventh hour, it is true, but 
 still joined us — will now address you.' 
 
 "I aecenc'cd the platform, and pulled 
 from the breast of my swallow-tailed 
 coat, a dainty white handkerchief, which 
 I flourished gracefully to conceal the 
 agitation I felt at the awful moment of 
 my beginning of my speech. 
 
 •' 'Gentlemen,' said I, 'm thus celebrat- 
 ing the inauguration of the process of 
 Wipirg Out all Sectional Bitterness— I 
 am cons trained to say'— 
 
 "But I was not constrained to say: 
 rather constraired to stop, by a babel of 
 derisive and indignant clamor that rose 
 from the mob. My faithful stenographer, 
 who was Instructed to takedown all that 
 he heard when I r-gan my speech, read 
 me the next day, from his notebook as 
 fellows: 
 
 •' 'Fwat thedivil is that spalpane doin' 
 up there? Does he think we wants to lis- 
 ten to the loikes o' him, who hasn't been 
 in the party long enuf to get rid of his 
 Black Ablishun luks. ' 
 
 " 'Of course he wants an ofllce. That's 
 all he came into the party for. He thinks 
 his glib tongue will get him something, 
 and so cheat some poor man who's not 
 had a taste of office for 20 years. ' 
 
 " 'He's an Ablishionist and a Yankee at 
 heart; he's been eddicated at a Yankee 
 college. His lather was a nigger lovin' 
 Yankee soldier, and helped kill decent 
 Dimmycrats. There's no truatin' nim. 
 Let him take a oack seat for 20 years as 
 we've done.' 
 
 " 'The idea of that kid- gloved whip- 
 ster trying to lecture us Democrats, 
 who've fcetncutia the storm and cold 
 since Biicbauan's time. Run him oS 
 the platform. Shut nim up.' 
 
 " 'Send him home to his mother.' 
 
 " 'Put him in his little trundle bed.' 
 
 " 'L-it bim get out of the way for one 
 of the real old sort.' 
 
 " Dry up, you Yankee. Sit down. 
 There's no i flices here for you.' 
 
 "There were other exclama'ions that, 
 having no word signs ^or,he had written 
 in the photetic and jumbl.d together 
 manner of his art, and which appeared 
 now in this myslifying way : 
 
 " 'Basthidhedwidasquash!' 
 
 " 'Ch'ick'imwui 0(i im lioodvinobl' 
 
 " 'HirtahaU nt> g "ell^a^es'l !' 
 
 " '6(im"h')r)y8'ull.'iUinoutbfullof80ft80- 
 apardstfjphis 4b ' 
 
 "I began to doubt whether my great 
 work in Wiping Out Sectional Bitterness 
 was fully comprehended by these men. I 
 would wait an instant, and seek an op- 
 portuiiity to explain, but had scarcely 
 formed this resolution, when an egg that 
 should have either been hatcht or eaten 
 some time during the Summer, landed 
 with coDPioerable force on the snowy ex 
 panse of shirt bosom that covered my 
 beating heart. Closely following it, came 
 a turnip that struck my shining silk hat 
 from my hand, and ruined 
 its sweet symmetry forever. Some one 
 tried to pull me from the platform by 
 one tail of my coat. The fabric was not 
 equal to the demand upon it, and tore to 
 the collar, i finally made my escape and 
 fled to my home, wnere lying on the sofa 
 groaning in anguish of spirit, I could 
 hear tne shouts, and yells and oaths of 
 the intoxicated jollifieis; could hear 
 them when they resolved themselves into 
 a riotous torchlight procession that 
 marched around the Town, to halt in suc- 
 cession before the dwellings of each of 
 their prominent political opponents and 
 taunt them 'with gibes and execrations, 
 offensive songs — perhaps break their win- 
 dows, and yell threats of hanging the ob- 
 jects of their dislike to lamp posts. " 
 
 CHA.PrERin. 
 
 BEFORE THE INATJQUItA.TION. 
 
 •'I was a long time in rallying from the 
 cruel blow which my self love had re- 
 ceived. There is no more bitter anguish 
 than that which accompanies the first 
 thrusting into a young man's soul of the 
 iron of a public humiliation. 
 
 "I had to bear all my anguish alone. 
 I had cut myself off completely from the 
 sympathy of my father and his friends, 
 and I was not then so sure of your grand- 
 mother's affections as to believe that they 
 would stand the test of my being made 
 a general laughing stock. I was sure I 
 had lost her, too, in the crush of hopes 
 and wreck of reputation of that most 
 wretched night, and the pangs of rejected 
 love were added to my other distress. 
 But she eventually found means of mak- 
 ing me understand that there was no 
 necessity for utter despair. This was 
 the first gl^am of hope that came to 
 lighten my desolatio'i. 
 
 Mtlast the hurs that had set heart and 
 
 \ 
 
CONFESSIONS OF A REPENTANT rOLITICIAN. 
 
 brain to thmbbiag with agony calmed 
 down until I became able to take notice 
 of somelhiog else offside my lacerated 
 feelings. 
 
 "Then I wasastonisht at the oppressive 
 feelirgof stagnation everywhere The 
 dread of some fearful intangible misfor- 
 tune that might ingulf the country was 
 written in every business man's face I 
 learned that business has no politics; 
 commerce no partlzanship, for without 
 regard to party, men sa d with troubled 
 look, as tht-y clotsed iheir shutters, or 
 extinguished the fires in their 'urnaces: 
 
 " 'The Democrats are agiin in power. 
 We must wait and see what they intend 
 doing.' 
 
 "The two years preceding the election 
 had been a period of marvelous prosper- 
 ity. The wise management of Resump- 
 tion by the Republican party had laid a 
 firm foundation upon which the active, 
 energetic people had built a magnificent 
 structure of material greatness. Every- 
 where the fruitful land smiled in the hus- 
 bandman's face the glad smile that rip- 
 pled with tlie sweet Summer winds over 
 the billowy acres of golden headed 
 wheat; everywhere the serried corn 
 waved its silky banners, and rattled its 
 stiff blades, whispering all the while as- 
 surances of a plenty beyond the fertility 
 of the Land of Goshen. Everywhere 
 the roar and the rush of the heavily laden 
 train answered the cheerful hum of the 
 busy factory. Every wind that blew 
 wafted toward distant ports great white- 
 winged fleets deeply laden with our wares 
 and merchandize. In every mart where 
 men chaffered, the coined gold chinkt 
 and clinkt as it was paid out in a swiftly 
 flowing stream for the choice products of 
 our skilled handiwork and teeming acres. 
 Everywhere our people's nostrils drank 
 in the exhilarating atmosfere of active 
 prosperity— -everywhere the working- 
 man's child laughed in glee at the plenty 
 with which it was surrounded. 
 
 "Upon this joy and contentment the 
 result of the election came like 
 the first breath of a pestilence in 
 a crowded City. The whirring 
 wheels stood still everywhere; the 
 locomotives rusted in their stalls; the 
 sea-coing ships chafed and fretted against 
 the deserted docks; the workingman's 
 cjiild grew hungry eyed. 
 
 "The only gladness to be seen was iu 
 the faces of the expectant place holders. 
 
 "My mention of this depressing out- 
 look to a Democratic politician, was 
 met by an assurance that it was all 
 the work of Radical alarmists, and 
 would disappear after Inauguration 
 Day, and the party once fairly graspt 
 the reins of power. 
 
 "So passed the ineffably dreary Winter 
 of 1880 81, the stagnation becoming al- 
 most deadness as the fateful iTourth of 
 March drew near. 
 
 "Toward the last of February I went on 
 to Washington to be present at the inau- 
 gural ceremonies. 
 
 "i found the Capitol in the possession 
 of the most ravenous swarm that earth 
 has seen gathered together since the Van- 
 dals sackt Rome. 
 
 "The hotels throbbed and shook with 
 the ponderous tread and explosive oaths 
 of the congregated 'big men' of the 
 party. The boarding houses swarmed like 
 ant hiHa with the smaller fry of place-hun- 
 ters. The saloons were bedlams ; the side- 
 walss Democratic mass-meetings in per- 
 petual session. Up and do wn the avenues, 
 hither and yon on every thorofare the 
 endless stream of wolfishly hungry men 
 surged and swept, whirled and eddied. 
 It was as if human beings had become 
 seized with some such a mania for a 
 concerted devastating foray as history 
 tells us sometimes infects all the rats, or 
 squirrels, or lemmings in a country, 
 when they gather together by billions, 
 and leave their line of march as blasted 
 and bare as if seared by the lightning. 
 
 "There were pug nosed, heavy-jawed 
 Tammanyites, clothed in colors like 
 those 0* a Dutch wagon; with jewelry 
 like the ornaments of a locomotive, and 
 speakiog a slang enricht by the thief jar- 
 gon of all Europe. There were sallow, 
 long haired Southerners, lean as the 
 Seven Kine in Joseph's vision; with om- 
 inous protuberances in their butternut 
 jeans garb over their rig ,t h'ps. They 
 moved together with an elbow touching 
 precision tnat told eloquently of four 
 years service in the field, and 15 more in 
 Rifle Clubs and Ku Klux Klans. There 
 were the Western Copperheads— the old 
 Sons of jLibeity and Illinii-short staiured, 
 vacant-faced, sneak eyed; their breath 
 laden with pjor whisky, m-ide infinitely 
 
8 
 
 LKCLIME AND F^LL 0^.' THE AMERICAN KEPUiJLTC. 
 
 •worse by vaporization thru their mouths 
 along with other unpleasant odors and 
 vile lanf^uage. 
 
 "Tuese were tbey who formed the 
 swarmiog oultitude that ranged over the 
 City and gloated upon all things tlfey 
 saw as newly recovered possessions 
 which had long been unjustly withheld. 
 I can net describe to you the insolence 
 with which they assumed possession. 
 You can not possibly imagioe it. Every- 
 thing they Siw, and che emoluments 
 thereof they considered theirs. 
 
 "They swarmea thru the Departments, 
 from the moment the doors were opened 
 in the morning untd they closed at night, 
 regarding everything — the clean, com- 
 fortabld rooms, the pleasant windows, 
 the appa'ently well ealaried, easy- work- 
 ing clerkships as their birthright, from 
 whicli they had been long and wrongfully 
 debarred. 
 
 "I was in one of the Departments one 
 day, when the advance of this Army of 
 Observation arrived, it was headed by 
 a group of rammaoyites under the lead 
 cf one of their number — a bummer pol- 
 itician, who had been nouriskt upon 
 spoils of one kind or another ever since 
 he was able to hold a pen or draw a 
 salary. 
 
 " 'How manny min hav you in here? 
 Wat do they do, and wat sorter pay do 
 they git?' he asked of the Chief Clerk, 
 in that tone of vulgar masterdom assuoa- 
 ed by a traveling saletman of cheap 
 clothing in addressing the colored 
 waiters in the dining room. 
 
 "The courU'.GU9 Chief Clerk arose with 
 Eome difficulty — even 16 years of con- 
 stant practice had not given him such use 
 of his ari iticial leg as he had of the one he 
 lost at Gettysburg — and said: 
 
 •' 'As we are having many such inquir- 
 ies, I have prepared this written list, 
 which contains all the information you 
 require.' 
 
 "The leader took the list and began pe- 
 rusing it with labored slowness. Great 
 drops of sweat stood out on his brow aad 
 his 'hick lips, working in silent sympv 
 thy, furmed each letter as he painfully 
 recalled its never too familiar form and 
 Bemblancti. 
 
 " 'Has as much trnnble with that as if 
 it were one of Sitr. Tilden's cypher dis- 
 patches,' fcaid a rogui.-'h liiib messenger, 
 
 referring to what was then considered the 
 great scandal of ouf history, but which 
 ha=< since been dwdrftintounmiudful in- 
 significance by the appalling enormities 
 that succeeded it, 
 
 " 'From the way his lips move he don't 
 seem to have ever had even a speaking 
 acquaintance with his letters,' said an- 
 other messenger. 
 
 "The man's companions stood by, 
 puffing cigars that, like Hamlets uncle's 
 offense, were rank and smelled to 
 Heaven, stared around and gloated on 
 all they saw with watering mouths. 
 
 "'Mickey,' said the leader, as he at 
 last finisht the perusal, 'that's de place 
 fer ye. Twelve hunnerd a year, an' 
 naathink for till do, I'll be bona',' and 
 he checkt off one of the places with a 
 trailing streak from the wet end of the 
 cigar that he used to point it out. 
 
 " 'An' that's fer ye, Jamie Fitzgerald. 
 An' that fer ye, Teddy Malone; an' that 
 fer ye, Barney O Shaughnessy.' 
 
 "And so on, until each of his follow- 
 ers was provided for, and there was a 
 check mark of dingy yellow tobacco 
 staiu against every place save that of the 
 Chief Clerk. 
 
 "This I'll take mesilf. It luks as if the 
 juties would just suit a gintlaoaan of me 
 abilities, an' ttio twini;y-tiv3 hanaerd a- 
 year is be no m tuner o' manes as good 
 as I did under Tweed, it's a divilish sight 
 better'n I've done lately, an' it'll be 
 mighty quare if an indlvijle o' me janius 
 don't discover a few chice parkesites 
 afore me first year's out." 
 
 " 'But ye've forgotten the leddies, 
 Cap'n,' said one of them, removing a 
 dirty thumb from the arm hole of his 
 vest long enuf to point it in the direc- 
 tion of the lady clerks. 
 
 " 'Why, so I hev; so I hev. Gi'me 
 the list agin ' 
 
 "More perspiring mental labor was 
 called for, and when the leader spoke at 
 last it was to parcel out the places as be- 
 fore: 
 
 "Tim, yer sister kin hev this " 
 
 "Teddy, your's might take this." 
 
 "And so on, not forgetting in his 
 generosity, to reserve the last and best 
 morsel for one of his own female friends. 
 
 " 'We'd better go right down to head- 
 qu«ters" he Siid, as he concluded, 'an* 
 hev the thing dxod suug an' tight at 
 
CONFESSIONS OP A REPENTANT POLITICIAN. 
 
 9 
 
 vvaDSt," saying which their inch thick 
 soles clumpt away over the mar- 
 ble floors, and gave place to a 
 similar platoon of butternut-clad Mis- 
 sifsippians who, ag tbey threw back the 
 rims of their broad brimmed haisto gaze 
 oa the magnificent prospect deluged the 
 white marble floor with torrents of to- 
 barco spittle. 
 
 "The leader propounded the same 
 query to the Cii'f f Clerk as his prede- 
 cessor hid, and received a like response. 
 Taking the lis' he gazed at it dubiously 
 for a minute, and then said: 
 
 " 'I reck n as my eyes air not very 
 good, and my spellin's a little spavined 
 you'll have to read that fur me. Read 
 it slow, and speak up purty peart, for 
 one o' my ears is a litUe stiff o' hearin'. 
 
 "He parceled out aU the places among 
 tis followers as his New York predeces- 
 sor had among his, not forgetting to in- 
 clude the ladies, nor to give himself the 
 best posi'ioQ, and then he and they 
 stalkt noisily away to have their choices 
 confirmed at heati quarters. 
 
 •'This is the way it went all day — 
 from the moment ttie doors were opened 
 in the morning to admit the ravenous 
 tide until tbey were closed as flood-gates 
 in the evening upon the eager current of 
 starving plice- seekers. 
 
 "My he^irt was wrung wi^h the visible 
 ancuish of the poor clerks whose means 
 of subsistence was being so coarsely 
 and unfeelingly parceled out before their 
 eyts by these office cormorants. The great 
 mass of them were, if men, those who 
 bad given their youth and s rengih, fre- 
 qutn'ly their heal'h and limbs, to the 
 country; if women, those who had given 
 the lives of husbands, brothers or fa'hera, 
 and theyhadsupp emented ih te greate t 
 of gifis by Jong years of faithful and 
 f flicient civil service, by which they had 
 fondly hoped to win reward in such per- 
 mancecy as would be a p^ov'sion for the 
 declining years, into which they were all 
 rapidly advancing. 
 
 "The faint hope that the Democrats 
 would respect their long and faithful 
 service and retain them, with wuich they 
 buoyed themselves up after the election, 
 had given away to tbe grimmest despair 
 at the irruption of the^e liordes, from 
 whom tlty could expect as little mercy 
 
 as a green cornfield from a sw) rm of 
 grasshoppers. 
 
 "With their years and the pbybical 
 debility added by their service in the 
 Army, difpl^cenoent meant setting their 
 feet upon that shard-strewn, flinty path, 
 by which Penury conducts men to pau- 
 per's graves. They went about their 
 accustomed tasks with broken hearts. 
 Their nerveless hands almost refused to 
 grasp their familiar pens. 
 
 "Iwent to the Capitol grounds, and 
 as I entered the enclosure a crowd of 
 half-inioxicated Arkansas men reeled in 
 from another side, and came to a halt be- 
 fere the statue of Lincoln mounted on a 
 pedestal. 
 
 " 'Who'n eternal blazes is this marble 
 galoot?' said they, staring at the sheeny 
 stone with dazed eyes. 
 
 "'Why, me fur a woolly-headed 
 
 nigger, if that ain't old Lincoln himself,' 
 said one. 
 
 '"That's a fack! Well, his day an' 
 that of hia nigger lovin' crew's done at 
 last, thank God! I've a mind ter im 
 prove hia beauty by shootin' that right 
 eye out. Here goes.' 
 
 "The ready revolver responded to his 
 tcTsch, and the ball tore away a great 
 flake of marble. 
 
 " 'That's fun,' said another; 'See me 
 knock his left eye.' 
 
 " Here's fur his twisted nose.' 
 
 " 'I'll fetch hia right ear.' 
 
 "'An' me his left.' 
 
 "A blue- coated officer of the Capitol 
 Police came running up to put a stop to 
 the desecration. 
 
 " 'I allers did love to shoot at that uni- 
 form,' said a sinister eyed ruffian from 
 Pine Bluffs, and his too- well aimed bul- 
 let dropt the poor officer dying on the 
 sod. 
 
 "When the statue was mutilated out of 
 all likeness to its former semblance, 
 the enthusiastic crowd that had gather- 
 ed around to er joy the sport that had the 
 sweetness of long deferred revenge, com- 
 pleted the destruction by overthrowing 
 it and breaking it into fragments with 
 an iron bar. 
 
 This gave the signal for extending the 
 woik ot destruction farther, and the 
 tumultuous crowd ranged thru the Cap- 
 itol, dfcStro3irg every picture, bust and 
 siH'.ue of a Repub ican they could find. 
 
10 
 
 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 " Gad, this is the best thing I've sein 
 since I saw the Yankees run away from 
 BuURun like sheep,' eaida tall Georgian 
 by my sice. 'I knew I'd see everj thing 
 come out all right before I died There are 
 1,500 Yankee cOicers planted on a piece 
 o' my land near Macon— old Camp Ssr- 
 ghum, you know. I guess they've made 
 it pretty rich. I'm goin' to write home 
 to day to take down the headstones, and 
 clean up the field for a tobacco crop. I 
 shouldn't wonder if I should make a 
 cou Die o' thousand dollars off that field 
 this season.' 
 
 " 'So this is Wiping Out bectional Bit- 
 terness,' I said to myself, as I turned 
 away with a leaden heart, and walking 
 down Pennsylvania Avenue, found my- 
 self, before I well knew it, seated in the 
 parlor of the National Hotel. The fold- 
 ing doors that divided the parlor into two 
 rooms were closed, and thru them came 
 the sound of voices of men in heated dis- 
 cussion in the next room. Suddenly the 
 doors were burst open as by some one 
 leaning too heavily against them, and the 
 whole interior of the room was exposed 
 to my view, 
 
 "The sight I saw there was so deeply 
 etched into my memory that half a cen- 
 tury has not dimmed the sharpness of its 
 liaes. 
 
 "Seated oa a chair in the center was 
 Gen, Hancock, his fat and usual smugly 
 smiling countenance convulsed with dis- 
 gust and rage. Around him were gath- 
 ered, some standing — some sitting — Fer- 
 nando Wood, of New York, Fort Pillow 
 Chalmers, and Lamar, of Mississippi, the 
 two Blackburns, of Kentucky, Ben. 
 Hill, of Georgia, Wade Hampton, of 
 South Carolina, and others whose names 
 I do not now recall, while in front 
 stood Voorhees of Indiana, with every 
 vein in his face throbbing almost to 
 bursting with passion. Tho I did not 
 know his name then, the snatiy suggesi- 
 Iveness of his tall, writhing form, the 
 flattened head, the baleful, greenish gray 
 light of his eyes, the set teeth and half, 
 opened lips thru which he hissed his 
 words, prepared me for the inform dtion 
 afterwards given that he was the greatest 
 then living of those vile Copperheads, 
 who during the War crawled in the rear 
 of our line of-ba'tle, and stung our sol- 
 dieis' heels. 
 
 " 'But he is one of my s tanchest sup- 
 porters in the State, and does more work 
 for me than any dozen others," he was 
 sajing, or rather hissing. 
 
 " '1 cannot help that ;"Hancock replied; 
 "tvith every d sposition in the world to 
 oblige you, it is simply preposterous to 
 ask that I must begin my official career 
 by the appointment of such a man to the 
 command of the new brigade we pro- 
 pose to add to the Army. Why, 1 have 
 here letters from friends of mine — old 
 soldiers in the Army — who say that he 
 was a commander in the Knights of the 
 Golden Circle, and as such had charge 
 of that division of the Sons of 
 Liberty that was assigned to the 
 duty of capturing the City of In- 
 dianapolis and the State oifices, when it 
 was proposed to carry Indiana over to 
 the Southern Confederacy in the Winter 
 of 1864. And see here," and his indig- 
 nation flamed to white heat; "just see 
 here! Here's a letter from an old friend 
 and one of the noblest fellows that ever 
 drew sword; who says that this same 
 rascal cost him his good right arm, by 
 urging some low hounds to shoot him, 
 because, when home from the field in 
 consequence of a wound received at 
 Mission Ridge, he gave some assistance 
 in enforciug the draft act.' 
 
 " 'Pity 'twasn't his infernal head, in- 
 stead of his arm,' said the sardonic 
 Chalmers, and the rest smiled ironically 
 at the ridicules! ty of the General's rea- 
 sons. 
 
 " 'These things y»u absurdly term of- 
 fenses are his highest virtues, for which 
 he must be honored and rewarded,' said 
 Voorhees — more snakelike than ever in 
 act and feature. 
 
 " 'The General forgets that having be- 
 come one of Us, he should view things 
 from Our s'audpoint," said Fernando 
 Wood, pulling his long 'Khite mustache, 
 while a mocking smile distorted his 
 coarge, almost brutal mouth. "To con- 
 tinue to look at things from the angle of 
 view he accnstomed himself to during 
 the W>ir, and to use such language he 
 ha? just employed is very improper; it 
 interferes deviously with the great work 
 of Wiping Out Sectional Bitterness.' 
 
 " 'But consider what effect this would 
 have in the Army,' said Hancock. 
 " 'This appointment of a civilian, who 
 
CONFESSIONS OP A REPENTANT POLITICIAN. 
 
 11 
 
 ha« just employed is very improper; it 
 interferes deviously with the great work 
 of Wiping Out Bf ctional BiUerness ' 
 
 " But consider what effect this would 
 hfl' e in the Army,' said Hancock, 
 *' 'This appoiaimeut of a civilian, who 
 bas beeii n » tervice, to such a high com- 
 inand would be a positive injustice to 
 all lower officers, who have earned pro- 
 motion, ai.d we could expect them to 
 resign in a body." 
 
 •' 'Let 'em resign, ' sneered little Vest, 
 of Missouri. "Let 'em resign if they're 
 such precious fools to give up their fat 
 places. Let 'em resign if they want to; 
 for they're a set of Black Republicans 
 that've fed long enuf at Government ex- 
 pense. We'll be mighty glad to get rid 
 of 'em that way, for they're likely to be 
 in our road in the future, and we want 
 their places for men that we can trust.' 
 
 " 'But I'll not do this," said Hancock, 
 doggedly. 'I've yielded to everything so 
 far that you've demanded of me. I've 
 given up the filling of all the offices to 
 you, that you may reward your hungry 
 mjrmidOES to Ealiety— if there's enuf in 
 God's great world to satisfy a hungry 
 Dem'cratic office seeker; I have agreed 
 to sign all your bills to appropriate what 
 money there is now in the Treasury to 
 make internal improvements in the 
 South, and for levying increased taxes 
 to pay off your claims for damages dur- 
 ing the War. But tuere is a point be- 
 'yond which I will not go. I will not 
 destroy the Army to please you, and I 
 ■will net load myself down with so much 
 odium that the people will hate me.' 
 
 " 'That's it; there's the secret," sneered 
 the heavy faced Lamar. 'Afraid of 
 hurting his popularity. Like all the 
 rest of them. Begins scheming for a 
 second term before his first's begun. This 
 makt s it necessary to tell you a very 
 simple truth which a man who knows 
 more of the country's history than he 
 learas in the gossip of the barracks, 
 would not need to be told. This truth is 
 that since the Democratic party made a 
 fool of itself in running VanBuren the 
 second time, it quit that sort of nonsense 
 Four years in the White House, doing 
 what is required of him by the party so 
 wears a man out with the people, thit tig 
 simply absurd to try to catch any votes 
 with him again.' 
 
 " 'The bait gets too rank and rusty, 
 never can fool the people twice with it,' 
 said Wood sententiously. 
 
 •' 'Once more; do >ou refuse to make 
 the promise I ask of you?" said Voor- 
 hees, whtjse rage was lauued still higher 
 by the debate. 
 
 " 'I do,' said Hancock, firmly. 
 
 "Voorhees's long body shrank together, 
 like a snake coiling itself for a spring, 
 but Hampton waved his hand as a signal 
 that he wanted to be heard, and rising he 
 supported himself on hia crutch and 
 said: 
 
 " 'Gentlemen: Gen. Hancock is labor- 
 ing under a delusion that I think I can 
 dispel, when all will be right. He imag- 
 ines that he has nominated and elected 
 himself, and can inaugurate himself. 
 This is quite a mistake. He is nothing 
 and can be nothing but what we made 
 him. A moment's reflection will show 
 him this, and that as ne owes everything 
 to us, he has nolhing to do but carry out 
 our wishes. If he cannot understand 
 this, we have the remedy in our own 
 hands. We can—" 
 
 'Here seme one c^llpd attention to the 
 hitherto unnoticed fact that the doors 
 had been forced open and that an out- 
 sider was an interested listener. The 
 doors were closed, and Hampton contin- 
 ued his remarks in so low a tone as to be 
 wholly inaudible, except whea he raised 
 his voice in the excitement of the pero- 
 lation, and then I overheard something 
 about ' Beware the fate of Harrison and 
 Taylor, who dared stand in our way.' 
 
 "An hour later the meeting broke up 
 and as Wood and Blackburn passed by 
 me the latter said : 
 
 " 'Ricki worse than a steer, before he 
 gave in, didn't he?" 
 
 " 'O, yes," said Wood with a chuckle; 
 'they always do. L':rd, whit a time we 
 had with Pierce and Buchanan, before 
 they'd put their necks into the yoke. 
 They were as fractious as s thorobred 
 two-year old, but we fetcht 'em finally, 
 and you never saw more obedient fellows 
 in your life, before their first years were 
 up. 'Twill be just so with this chap. 
 He's got more beef and buU-headedness 
 about him, but not so much real will as 
 they had.' 
 
li 
 
 I/ECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMBKICAN RKPUBLTC. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "ill fares the LAND, to HASTENING ILLS 
 A l'Kb;V." 
 
 "Once, while traveUne oa the Mis- 
 sippi, 1 Sivv a moat ddight'ul little bit of 
 landscape, — a plantation with well tilled 
 fields, elegant mansion surrounded by 
 choici St flowers, that bloomed with the 
 f pu'ent splendor befeottea by rich soil 
 and semitropical sKies Babstantial 
 buildings protected the plantation's crops 
 and machinery, neat cottages sheltered 
 the people employed; elegant and rt fined 
 men and women sat on the piazzas, 
 bright chili ren romped in the pleasant 
 shade of grand old trees. A mile away 
 the mighty river, swelled to a torrent by 
 great rains over the half continent which 
 it drained, swept angrily around the long, 
 Eeoii circular embankment, that followed 
 the bend, and held it back from over- 
 flowing the plantation. The -people on 
 the piazzas lookt away over swelling, 
 surging water and smiled coaddently. 
 The levee, raised with iafiaite toll aad 
 sacriflce, had piotected their possessions 
 for 25 years — this generation could not 
 remember when it did not — aad with 
 this feeling of security they had gone on 
 develo[;irjg their home and plaatalion to 
 what it now was. Bit a bright-eyed, 
 Silken furred muskrat, equally eager to 
 etiablish himself and his in permanent 
 comfort, had burrowed in the bank a 
 home that according to muskrat ideas 
 of architecture was preferable to the 
 mansion en the lawn. It had an elegant 
 gallery leading down in the water in 
 front,and another covered way down the 
 back to the artichokes and sweet potato^ 
 in the fi-ild. But the next day, 
 while tbe people on the piazzas 
 Btill lookt at the yellow, turbalent flood 
 and smiled, the muskrat and family 
 ■were seeking a place of safety. The 
 water had risen to the nest. It 
 was DOW pouring in a thin stream thru 
 his covered way down to the field. An 
 hour later the hungry river was devour- 
 ing the baak like some greai insatiable 
 monster, and over the plantation, and all 
 the life and beauty and happiness upon 
 it, rolled the yellow, merciless tide. 
 
 "As hat muskrat's ambition to pro- 
 vide for himself an elevated and com- 
 fortable nest was to that levseand planta- 
 
 tion, (o had Hancock's similar ambition 
 bten to the country. 
 
 "It was a perfect Missiesippi of Dsmoc- 
 racy ihal he let m to fl jod the country — 
 a Mississippi at freshet level, muddy, 
 slimy and foul, polluted with the gatn- 
 erings of a long and vicious course, the 
 drainage of sewers, the skimoaings of 
 cesspools, the dumpiugs of garbage, 
 carrying ih solution all the excreta of 
 society, and fljating the noisome, rotting 
 carrion of all the frauds and falsehoods, 
 and Climes of our century of history— 
 an overflow that poisoned all the pure 
 wells and springs of private and public 
 life. 
 
 "Men escaped as far as possible from 
 the noxious flood and waited for it to 
 subside. Aias, no olive-leaf- bearing 
 dove ever came to announce that glad 
 tidings. 
 
 ' Deeper and deeper were all traces of 
 the happy past buried under the slime 
 and sediment. 
 
 "Within a month after Hancock took 
 his seat he had fo;c3d up)u him a com- 
 plete recognition of the fact that he was 
 but the hand and mouth- piece of the 
 cabal of arrogant oligarchs who had bot 
 him with a price. He was to say what 
 they ordered him to say — end nothing 
 else; he was to do what they demanded 
 of him— and nothing else. He accepted 
 the situation. N-jver a man of much 
 individuility, or mental initiative; more 
 than anything else a lover of per- 
 sonal comfort, and the pleasures 
 of the dinner table, the club and the 
 drawing rocm; ignorant bsyound ex- 
 pression of the duties of the Presiden- 
 tial oflice. he was wholly unable to grap- 
 ple with the determined and able con- 
 spirers, of whom he was the figure-head. 
 He knew enuf to recognize this and bow 
 to it. Occa -ionally, when some of his 
 army prejudices were trampled upon he 
 would break out into a petulant rebel- 
 liop,but hU masters managed him as con- 
 spirators always manage their dupes. 
 A suggestion of exposure and punish- 
 ment of crimes they had already com- 
 pelled him to commit, never failed to 
 reduce him to submission, and acquies- 
 enee in new and gravtr offenses. 
 
 'The Southern Oligarchy that it had 
 been in power before the War was again 
 supreme, with tenfold more lust of abso- 
 
CONFESSIONS OF A RBPBNTANT POLITICIAN. 
 
 18 
 
 lute power, and a hundredfold increase 
 of knowledge 3f the ways to attain thaD 
 end. The histories of A.thens, Rjme and 
 Venice had shown them how an oli- 
 garciiy can be the most extortionate and 
 cruel of despotisms; their o^n processes 
 in Mississippi, South Carolina and ether 
 Southern States had given them practice 
 in the methods thty now meant to apply 
 to the whole Nation. Taey knew well 
 what they could reckon upon. Their 
 own section was — in the slang of tue day 
 —'solid' for their schemes, and they 
 could rely, as they ever could, upon the 
 Nortbtra Copperheads— even as the old 
 Oliearchs of Rome and Venice used the 
 basest of the plebeians for the subjection 
 of their fellows. 
 
 "Toe first act of the Olierarchy was to 
 empty the hoarded rail ions in the Treas- 
 ury— milJions plac d there by Republi- 
 can honesty and flnancial sagacity— into 
 their own pockets, thru the flimsy pretext 
 of making internal improvements in the 
 South, and the payment of Southern 
 War Claims called for the issue of several 
 hundred billions of bonds. One dollar 
 i : h hundred of this thrown to theu* 
 Northern a lies, like a bone to a dog, 
 kepi them quiet and contented. 
 
 "This gave them all the m -ney they re- 
 quired for their designs, and if more 
 were needed it could be readily obtained 
 by the issue of more bonds, as the credit 
 of the. United States was still at the high 
 K) a' k where 20 years of Republicanism 
 had placed it. From that time forward 
 they moved iar.ialy forward to the ful- 
 filment of all their designs. 
 
 "The adoption of the system of peon- 
 age by the various States gave them es 
 complete control of the negros' la^o^, as 
 slavery ever did, without the embarrass- 
 ments of Slavery in being compelled to 
 care for worn out laborers. 
 
 • The attempts of the negros to escape 
 from this servitude gave occasion lor 
 aiming and organizing as soldiery every 
 poor white in the South, to act as guards 
 and patrols, and be prepared for future 
 cohtiDgencie3. Skeleton regiments wera 
 form* dm this way that would fill up to 
 two mi'lioa men. Na young white men 
 in tb. S »uth who could read and write, 
 was without a commission and a salary 
 from the Government. 
 
 "Wars were provoked with Spain, 
 
 Mexico and Venezuela on pretexts more 
 or less frivolous— that with Venezuela 
 being, I believe, because the Hon. Pow- 
 hattan BAidwtll Slote, of Virginia, our 
 Minister to that Court— had been sum- 
 marily and somewhat painfully kickt 
 out of a room by a parly of poker-play- 
 ers becsufe of the discovery in the Hon- 
 orable Gentleman's sleeve of three aces, 
 wiiich he had not hiJden with his usual 
 ability. Because the Southern soldiers 
 were needed at home to guard against 
 servile insurrection, the task of uphold- 
 ing the National honor was cunningly 
 made the duty of the Regular A.rmy,and 
 volunteers from the Northern States. 
 One half fof the ofB^iers whi had gained 
 (jistinction on the Union side during the 
 Rebellion died of the wmito at tlie siege 
 of Caraccas, and the remainder were 
 fearfully decimated in Cuba and Mex- 
 ico by fevers that were much deadlier 
 than the cannon at Havana or the mus- 
 ketry at Vera Crua. 
 
 "Meanwhile the Oligarchs were per- 
 sistently pushing forward their schemes 
 for making the North as 'solid' for them 
 as the South. Fraud and force were 
 employed skilfully and constantly. Tissue 
 talots judiciously employed in Boston, 
 New York, Newark, Pittsburg, Phila- 
 delphia and Indianapolis, gave Pennsyl- 
 vania, New Jersey, Indiana, New York 
 and Massachusetts into their hands, ap- 
 parently beyond redemption. 
 
 "Growing bolder and more inaolcnt 
 with success, they revived the outrages 
 of the old Anil Slavery days against those 
 who djired to speak or write against 
 them. Many editors were shot at their 
 desks, like Owen Lovej y; many minis- 
 ters were assailed by rufflins, while still 
 wearing their sacred vestments. Hun- 
 d'tds of public speakers were driven 
 from the platform, tarred aid feathered 
 ridden on rails, subjected to every man- 
 ner of contumely, and many were killed. 
 Every day they riveted the manacles 
 ti^'hter around the limbs of Liberty. 
 Every day their clutch upon the throat of 
 Free Speech became more throttling. 
 
 "The railroads, with their hundreds of 
 thcusands of employes, the great corpor- 
 ations of all kinds— cowardlv sycophan- 
 tic as these awtys are to Power, has- 
 tened to place themselves at the feet of 
 the Oligarchy, and assist it in its horrid 
 work. 
 
14 
 
 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN HUPUBLIC 
 
 "In the meantime the Civil Service of 
 the country had become an organizjd 
 extortion. The tactics of Tweed hal 
 been enJarged to fit the ■whole- Nation, 
 and a million of voracious office holders, 
 each more greedy and unsatisflable than 
 the other, fattened and battened on the 
 people's substance. 
 
 "At last endurance ceased to be a vir- 
 tue, and the people of the North rose in 
 a tempest of wrath, to extirpate the men 
 whose gyves galled every limb." 
 
 " 'Aha, my friends, we have you now.' 
 I heard Wade Hampton say with that 
 Mephistopheiian glee characteristic of 
 him when his plots mature. ' Tou are 
 Rebels now. We thot we'd goad you in- 
 to it at last. You sowed in the wind in 
 1861-3; you'll reap in the whirlwind in 
 1885.' 
 
 "The oligarchy had anticipated this, 
 and made the fullest p'eparations for it. 
 Instantly the skeleton r gimenta of the 
 Seuth were filled up to their maximum, 
 and were on the march, While the peo- 
 ple of the North, who had seiz'jd a 
 couple of arsenals and killed a few of 
 the most obnoxious of their oppres- 
 sors, were holding war meetings to 
 gather funds, and determine on a 
 plan of operations, the Virginian troops 
 had hurried across into Pennsylvania 
 and occupied the whole of the narrow 
 strip of country between Pittsburg 
 and Lake Erie, thus cutting off complete- 
 ly all communication between the East 
 and the West. They were immediately 
 reinforced by regiments which had been 
 secretly organized among the disaffected 
 miners of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and 
 without much trouble they made their 
 position across the highway of the Na- 
 tion impregnable. At the same time 
 fleets *f improvised gun boats which had 
 bten assembled at Memphis, Louisville, 
 and 6t. Louis, pusht out up the Missouri, 
 Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and brot 
 Cincinnati, Pittsburg and St. Louis 
 under their guns, and cut off communi- 
 cations between the east and west sides 
 of the Mississippi and Missouri. A sim- 
 ilar fleet appeared on the Lakes, and dis- 
 tributed i'st^K 80 as to threaten BuiTalo, 
 Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago and 
 Milwaukee with heavy guns. The Sons 
 of Liberty in Indiana— fully armed and 
 equipt— fcprang to arms at the first 
 
 signal from Washington, took 
 possesfioi of all the railroads, 
 and strategic points in the State, harried 
 the people of Ohio, Michigan and Illi- 
 nois with raid*, and prevented all co- 
 operation between them. In like manner 
 the Missouri guerillas appeared in great 
 force along the borders of Kansas and 
 lowa.and menaced the defenseless Towns 
 with destruction. The hoodlums of New 
 York City— one hundred thousand strong 
 — who had been organized beforehand, 
 fell upon their old enemies in the coun- 
 try side, like the robber Hubs upon the 
 peaceful inhabitants of Panonia, and 
 smote and spoiled them as far up the 
 Hudson as West Point, where they were 
 checkt and turned back with great 
 slaughter by a concentration of the en- 
 raged inhabitants. 
 
 "New England was the only section 
 that had foreseen the struggle and made 
 ready for it. As the people of these six 
 States had not approved of the Venezue- 
 lan, Cuban and Mexican wars, into fight- 
 ing which the people of the rest of the 
 North had been artfully duped, they 
 still retained their officers and soldiers 
 who had graduated in war during the 
 Rebellion, and who now leavened and 
 seasoned the militia Regiments which 
 had been organized and armed in anti- 
 cipation of the crisis. 
 
 "At the outbreak of the trouble Maine 
 sent 15 regiments, Vermont 4, New 
 Hampshire 6, and Rhode Island 2, to 
 joinMassachusetta's 30 on theConnecticut 
 River front. 
 
 "But they were outflankt by the great- 
 ly superior forces of the South, aided by 
 thof.e from Ne n York City, brot to a 
 stand on the plains about Willimautic 
 and there beaten so overwhelmingly, 
 that the Southern troops marcht directly 
 into Boston, blew up Bunker Hill 
 monument, burned Faneuil Hall, con- 
 verted the Old Sjuth Church into a 
 Hospital, the State House into a Military 
 Prison, levied an indenmiiy fine of a 
 hundred million dollars on State street, 
 and appointed Robert Toombs, Military 
 Governor of the City, whose first act 
 was to order in force an exact duplicate 
 of Ben, Butler's orders at New Orleans, 
 and his next to hang Wendell Phillips 
 for 'making a seditious speech.' 
 
 "Numerous severe engagements were 
 
CONFESSIONS OF A KSPBNTAHT POLITICIAN. 
 
 15 
 
 fought bet v^een the forces of Oligarchy, 
 and tae hastily gathered levies of Ohio, 
 Michigaa, Wiaconsin, Iowa, Minnesota 
 and Kansas, but thothe latter showed 
 much spirit and determination, their de- 
 feat was inevitable from the first, as 
 without training and experienced leaders 
 they could not cope successfully with an 
 enemy suptrior in numbers who had 
 both, who began the conflict with such 
 poaseseion of all the strategic points, as 
 rendered co- operation between any two 
 States impossible. Besides this the 
 Southerners had an immense advantage 
 in the active assistance of the old Copper- 
 Lead element which everywhere — except 
 in Iowa and Kansas, was a formidable 
 minority of the population, and no 
 No. them man went to battle without 
 fearing quite as much fear for his home 
 and his kinsfolk from the enemy he left 
 in the rear as he did for himself from the 
 enemy in his front. 
 
 "Within a year after the inception of 
 hostilities there was a Southern garrison 
 in every Northern Town, and Southern 
 tax gatherers were knocking at every 
 man's door, while these defeated people, 
 their business ruined, their energy gone, 
 lay helpless and sullen beneath the feet 
 of their arrogant conquerors. 
 
 "For ten years that weighed like the 
 night-mare this continued. Each year 
 was worse than its predecessors; each 
 made the yoke under which they groaned 
 heavier and more galling, but even this 
 was not sufficient to whoU} des'^roy the 
 spirit of the people, who began to exercise 
 their ingenuity in making the best of the 
 situation. They learned the lesson of 
 adaptation to circumstances by which the 
 people of the East manage to live, and 
 thrive under the organized pillage of the 
 Turkish Government, but just so soon as 
 a faint gleam of hope came from this 
 direction, it was sUfled by a new form of 
 danger. The conspirators began— as 
 conspirators of ihs kind always have 
 done since the world began— a bitter 
 quarrel among themselves over the divis- 
 ion of the spoils, and soon they were 
 turning their arms against each other, as 
 savagely as centuries before the succes- 
 Bors of Alexander, or the Consuls and 
 Proconsuls and Generals of the decaying 
 Roman Empire did. 
 
 "California was the 4rst to break away, 
 
 and after slaughtering the army sent to 
 reduce to obedience, in the Coo che to pa 
 Pass, was allowed to withdraw and es- 
 tablish an independent republic, with the 
 rest of the States of the Pacific Slope. 
 Thea Texa« houfed her Lone Star Flag 
 again, and dragged under its folds A.ri- 
 z na and New Mexico. Fernando Wood 
 and John Kelley revived the project 
 broached by the former in 1861 and made 
 New York a free City, with the Harp 
 of Erin and the Sunburst, as its flag. 
 New Orleans followed this example, and 
 declared itself to be the Venice of 
 America. The Germans of St. Louis, 
 wearied out with the rapacity of the 
 "Pukes" forming the controlling element 
 of the population of the interior of Mis- 
 souri, proclaimed their City free and 
 independent— a new Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main. 
 
 "Vorhees resurrected iis old idea of 
 a Northwestern Confederacy, to include 
 the States between the Ohio and Missis- 
 sippi Rivers and the Lakes, with Indi- 
 ana at the head. There was no difficulty 
 in detaching these from the rest of the 
 crumbling Nation, but the politicians 
 took advantage of the Secession to carry 
 it still farther and make separate and 
 individual sovereignties of each State, ♦' 
 and this was followed everywhere else, 
 except in New England, which took 
 advantage of the troubles to drive out 
 their oppressors and form a Confederacy 
 of itself, which, with the California Con- 
 federacy, is LOW the only prosperous 
 remnant of the grand old Natiori. 
 Nor did the process stop with 
 the separation into States, for the 
 old time feuds between different por- 
 tions of the same States broke out 
 with intensified vigor. The Eastern 
 Shore sloughed ofE from the rest of 
 Maryland; "TideAvater Virginia" and 
 "Middle Virginia," separated with a 
 sharp struggle. The old fight between 
 the Low Country and Up Country, 
 North Carolinians could only be satisfied 
 by a separation. South Carolina split 
 into three parts; Georgia into two, Ten- 
 nessee into East, Middle and West Ten- 
 nessee; Texas into five States, and so on, 
 until now, as you know, we have so 
 many different States and Territories and 
 Confederations that even the geographers 
 can not keep track of them, and their 
 
16 
 
 IKCLINK AND FALL OF THE AMEEICAN liKPUBLIC. 
 
 boubdaries, sizes and shapes are as shift- 
 ing as the clouds of the sky. No man 
 koows one month where the boundaries 
 of his State will be the next. Every am- 
 bitious dem pog, every bra wlinp cross- 
 roads politician; every strong armed ad- 
 verturer carves out for himstlf an inde 
 pendent dominion of as large proportion 
 as he can grasp. Our politics now is a 
 Btiuggle be ween these conducted on the 
 old piinciple of 
 
 "Let him get who has the power, 
 And let him keep who can." 
 
 "Whereof old war was a thing of in- 
 frequent occurrence, and conducted in 
 remote regions, it is now an annual, 
 thing, and we fight our neighbors almost 
 on our own; door steps. In these in- 
 testine jars, these struggles of Counties 
 and f^itif-s wUh ea^-h o'Vpt, trade, com- 
 
 merce, manufactures, learning, art — 
 everything that mate a people great, 
 have disappeared; ova young men are 
 cut off before their beards are grown, and 
 we are daily sinking in the scale of civili- 
 zation toward the level of the nomad who 
 dwtlle in bis camel's hair tent. 
 
 "Heaven tas punisht me terribly for 
 the indiscretivon «f my youth by prolong- 
 ing my life, that I mi^ht experience 
 every evil that my folly assisted so much 
 to biing upon my beloved country. T 
 feel that it can have no obj , ct in further 
 prolonging my suffering, and that it 
 must in mercy soon take me hence. 
 
 "Wht!n I am gone I want you to have 
 
 inscribed upon my tombstone as my sole 
 
 epitaph, that like O'hello I was 
 
 "One whose hand 
 Like the base Jur<<^an threw a pearl away 
 Eicl1^r than bH his tribe " 
 
 Nasby Pamphlets "Andersonvil 
 
 55 
 
 5 
 
 A STORY OF SOUTHERN PRISONS. 
 
 The latest political sensation is the Blade's new 
 
 NASBY CAMPAIGN PAMPHLETS 
 
 of 24 pages each, neatly and beautifully printed, 
 filled wiib capital bumoroxis illustrations, and 
 juBt the 0, ing to iauKh over with a friend or to 
 convert a D^piocrAt. No.'s 1 and 2 are now 
 ready. No. 3 will shortly be announced. No. 
 1, entitled 
 
 The Democratic John Bunyan 
 
 presents the visions of Hancock's Administra- 
 tion, ab viewed prophetically by the Parson In 
 a series of ten dreams wiiich befell him in the 
 after-dinner hour. No 2 is 
 
 Nasby as a Banker^ 
 
 or the History of the "Onlimlt«dTrU8tand Con- 
 fidence Company," republished in the series, at 
 the numerous and repeated requests of per- 
 sons In all parts of the country. The Onlimiteii 
 Trust and Confidence Company, an institution 
 established during the Husb times for the man- 
 ufacture and circulation of paper money, 
 aOordH a telling sarcasm on lae fallacies and 
 vaparlesof Inflation. 
 
 Tliene pamphimx will he nnnt by mail, post- 
 paid, to any addPRRR. nn rnpnlnt of 10 cents 
 each, or three for 25 cents. News dealers may 
 order 'hem by erpress, charges to follow, at 
 f C.50 per 100 copies. Address, 
 
 By JOHN McELROY. 
 
 THE BLADE. 
 
 Toledo, Ohio. 
 
 The Most Successful Book of 
 this Quarter of a Century. 
 
 This Book, "which has already met with a sale 
 wliiun i-< hiuiply astonishing, is a story of in- 
 teiJStt interest, iieiiig the experience of a private 
 sol-iier in a 15 month'-' sojourn in tlie Rebel 
 Military PrisO'.s at Richmoud, ApdersonviUe, 
 Savani ah, Millen. Biachsne-r and Florence. It 
 is profu-ely iU^lSt^at^d, arjd its vivid correct- 
 ness is at ^stPd by U' aHy 'j.OOO letters from sol- 
 diers iu all parts of the coimtry. 
 
 THE STRTHiOLBS OF NA§IBY— 
 
 The Complete Letters of PETROLEUM V. 
 Ni8«Y, from IbBO to the Kaiiflca'ion of 
 the lath Amendment. lUustra ed bv Thos. 
 ^as^. 000 Largo rajres. Price, 83 00. 
 
 BIBLE BIOGRAPHY— 
 
 A Complete Biography of all the Prinoipal 
 
 Characte s in \\\k bibio froHi Adam down. 
 With an Irtr duction by tlieR.-v HENivV 
 WARD HEECHER. Prof use ly Ulustrated. 
 600 Pages. Price, $3.00. 
 
 Sold only by Subscription. 
 AGJUJVTS WAJ\TjED, 
 
 Address 
 
 LOCKE PiniKHiNR rt] 
 
 LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS » 
 
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