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THE 
 
 lENTUS OF DEMOCRACY; 
 
 THE FALL OF .BABYLON. 
 
 A. C. HARNESS. 
 
 Tin- Lio of Judah luitl) sin-uns from his laic. 
 
 His KJII in- i.~ fn-.-dom, his throne is tin- ah. 
 
 Mis il.oa nioii from ocean to ocean is spread, 
 
 His mis, oil s to furnish t)ie ravens with hrcad. 
 
 H.- hold th- a.M-j, s.-a in tlie palm of his han.l, 
 Tht; ,,-,- n s mail bill(. \\ s ohov his coiiimaiul. 
 Thi- h.-a of his hosom is thu swell ticl.- of Jif<> 
 Aii-l tli- daughter of /ion his heantiful wit .-. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 P I T B L T . 1 1 K 1 ) B Y B AK C L AY 
 
 I-.XTFI STI:I 
 
 2 
 
THE 
 
 GENIUS OF DEMOCRACY; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE FALL OF BABYLON. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY BARCLAY & CO., 
 
 No. 21 NOHTH SEVENTH STREET. 
 1873. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1G73, by 
 
 A. C. HARNESS, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, E> 
 

 D E DICATE D 
 
 THE LION OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAII, 
 THE PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID, 
 
 THE ALPHA AND OMEGA, 
 
 THE BEGINNING AND THE ENDING, 
 
 THE FIRST AND THE LAST, 
 
 THE EVERMORE, 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE WORD OF GOD. 
 
 The red horse paled at his whispered sigh, 
 
 And the pale horse vanished in the glance of his eye. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 To the People 6 
 
 Liberty 8 
 
 Plan of the City 11 
 
 The Ensign of Universal Liberty ; 15 
 
 The Destruction of Sennacherib 16 
 
 The Beautiful River 17 
 
 The Morning Star 18 
 
 Chide him not 19 
 
 Good-bye 20 
 
 I trusted One whose Heart was false 22 
 
 The Parting 24 
 
 The Valley of Shadows 25 
 
 The Vale of Purification 26 
 
 Look and Live 27 
 
 Never 28 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To those who read my books I have but this 
 request to make let every one utter the candid 
 convictions of his own secret soul, for candor ie 
 purity, and confession is love. 
 
 Then fire will burn on every heart, 
 And Hash from every kindled eye, 
 And every gleam will be a dart, 
 That dooms some cherished sin to die. " 
 
 Then soul with soul will meet and clash, 
 As meeting clouds their lightning flash, 
 Till clouds and darkness leave the sky, 
 And heaven greets each chastened eye. 
 
 Till all shall see the deep, deep blue, 
 The dewy vault so clear and true, 
 Where man will meet his Maker s face, 
 A smile of sweet, parental grace. 
 
 v 
 
THE GENIUS OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 TO THE PEOPLE. 
 
 " THE City, the place of our fathers sepulchres, lieth 
 waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire." 
 
 Will the true and good men of our country those who 
 have not lost faith in Liberty the everlasting Father 
 the Alpha and Omega, meet in a National Convention to 
 rebuild that City ? A city which was once the home of 
 the virtuous and the good, but now the hold of every foul 
 spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird ? 
 Will they meet to tear down its walls, daubed with untem- 
 pered mortar, to clear away the rubbish of its ruins, and 
 lay its foundations anew, upon the principles of Truth, 
 unchanging Truth, and eternal Justice ? 
 
 Will they meet to reassert the personal freedom of man, 
 as against corporate power, and the political rights of man, 
 as against organized despotism ? 
 
 Will they meet to maintain and promulgate that simple 
 practical thought : " Let them who are chief among you 
 be the servants of the rest," the cardinal principle of our 
 American system ? 
 
 Will this be the character and purpose of this Conven 
 tion, or will they, like all other political conventions which 
 have met in this country for these many years, meet only 
 to set an expediency trap to catch the Presidency, with its 
 
 patronage and plunder? 
 
 5 
 
6 THE GENIUS OF DEMOCRACY; OR, 
 
 Will they meet to arouse in the bosoms of their country 
 men that spark of Deity which leads men to love justice, 
 truth and liberty, elements of power which alone can create 
 and preserve a pure and healthy Democracy ; or will they 
 meet only to -vitalize a political faction, which in the name 
 of Democracy has bartered away every principle that 
 makes freedom possible and Democracy desirable ? 
 
 Will they meet, in the name of the people, to proclaim 
 their undying hostility to that Upstart Aristocracy, that 
 Bastard Nobility, which, by means of its banks and its 
 bonds, the stealings of an unnecessary, cruel and unholy 
 war, has subsidized to its uses the moral, social and poli 
 tical institutions of the country ? 
 
 It buys the pulpits, to corrupt the religion of the people. 
 
 It buys the press, to delude the people into the fatal 
 belief that a cowardly and time-serving expediency will 
 release them from the cruel wrongs, and unbearable bur 
 dens, which have already reduced them to the condition 
 of European serfs. 
 
 It buys the political power to enact prescriptive and 
 tyrannical laws, making it disloyalty to question its high 
 pretensions, and treason to deny the justice of its bold and 
 reckless usurpations. 
 
 It buys the legislature, both State and National, to pass 
 laws for its special benefit, to the detriment of every man 
 who is engaged in an honest and useful occupation. 
 
 In a word, it has set up mammon for God, made money 
 the measure of merit, and commanded all men to take into 
 their partnership, in the ordinary business avocations of 
 life, the favorite children of this harlot, duplicity and 
 fraud, or face the ghastly stare of bankruptcy and star 
 vation. 
 
 This mystic Babylon, this vast trellis-work of Banks 
 and Bonds, like a great wire-bridge, spans the Atlantic 
 Ocean, one foot resting on the backs of the down-trodden 
 
THE FALL OF BABYLON. 7 
 
 children of Europe, and the other on the backs of the more 
 recently enslaved children of America. 
 
 Children of Washington, children of Adams, children 
 of Jefferson, children of Hamilton, children of Henry, 
 children of Warren, children of Lafayette, children of 
 Emmet, children of Bruce, children of Tell, will you stand 
 still until the " land of the free and home of the brave " 
 shall be incorporated into the despotism of Europe, or will 
 you move from under the Oppressor of all, and let it fall 
 and sink into the depths of the sea ? 
 
 The hour of your redemption has come. 
 
 Will you as the children of Liberty, the everlasting 
 Father, claim for yourselves and for your children, your 
 heaven-born rights, and proclaim to the world a jubilee 
 of universal freedom ; or will you, as the offspring of apes 
 and monkeys, sell your birthright for a mess of pottage, 
 and bequeath to your children the curse, the plague, the 
 mildew, the blast, the blight, the woe, the death denounced 
 against those who are false to Justice, to Truth and to 
 Liberty ? 
 
THE GENIUS OF DEMOCRACY; OR t 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 I HEARD a voice, it speaks to me, 
 
 It spake to me before, 
 It is the voice of Liberty, 
 
 That lived in days of yore. 
 
 It called me from my mountain home, 
 The Shepherd s peaceful ways, 
 
 Where I had gone to live alone 
 And dream away my days. 
 
 It led me to the tented field, 
 
 To witness noble deeds, 
 Where mid the clang of clashing steel 
 
 The patriot warrior bleeds. 
 
 It said above the battle s din, 
 Above its marshalled tread, 
 "Freedom for the brave who win, 
 Tis for the Deathless dead." 
 
 It bade me see the desert waste 
 That marked the spoiler s path, 
 
 A torch for every dwelling place, 
 A tyrant s petty wrath. 
 
THE FALL OF BABYLON. 
 
 It led me up to Pisgah s top, 
 
 Where Israel s prophet stood, 
 And showed me Israel s peaceful lot, 
 
 And Jordan s rolling flood. 
 
 Oh, bright Elysium, Beulah s land, 
 
 Stay, rapturous vision, stay, 
 And let me here enchanted stand 
 
 Till life has passed away. 
 
 Oh, touch my lips with hallowed fire, 
 
 Thou spirit from the skies, 
 To Heaven s music tune my lyre 
 
 Before the rapture dies. 
 
 The city with its gates of pearl, 
 
 Thy temple built anew, 
 Bright Banner dipped in blood, unfurl 
 
 Thyself to mortal view. 
 
 Lo ! Heaven s host in bright array, 
 The marshalled, Deathless dead, 
 
 The sun, moon, stars, they melt away, 
 Earth trembles ncath their tread. 
 
 Earthquaked islands lost to sight, 
 Doomed Empires, tumbling thrones, 
 
 Fall, crashing fall, a hideous plight, 
 Earth s face a stare of bones. 
 
 A dreadful wasting wave of fire, 
 
 Phal nx of the Deathless dead, 
 Avenging flood of Heaven s ire 
 
 Meets tyrants pale with dread. 
 
 Where, robbers, thieves, where, dastard crew, 
 
 Oh, where, where will you fly? 
 Earth hath no hiding place for you, 
 
 The lost are doomed to die. 
 
 Poor widows robbed and orphans starved, 
 
 The martyred ones of earth, 
 The innocent, like lamblets carved, 
 
 To furnish devils mirth- 
 
10 THE GENIUS OF DEMOCRACY; OR, 
 
 They re there to whet sharp vengeance sword 
 
 And urge the havoc on, 
 Extirpate death ; yes, that s the word, 
 
 And mercy show to none. 
 
 Brave sons of freedom, lift your shout 
 
 Of Victory on high, 
 Hell s marshalled hosts are put to rout 
 
 By him who rules the sky. 
 
 "Peace, Peace on earth, good will to man," 
 
 A still small voice I hear ; 
 Tis Finished, my redeeming plan 
 
 The innocent to spare. 
 
 To live, to reign on earth with me, 
 
 And sin again no more, 
 Of me (my name is Liberty) 
 
 The prophets taught of yore. 
 
THE FALL OF BA B YL ON. 1 1 
 
 PLAN OF THE CITY. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 ANOTHER memorial day has passed the fourth, I be 
 lieve, from the beginning ; but how different was it in all 
 its aspect from the first day we met not to build tomb 
 stones to the dead, but to institute a service a beautiful, 
 a holy service to keep alive in our own hearts that love 
 of liberty and truth, which made the deeds of our fallen 
 comrades immortal and their lives eternal. How sweet it 
 was then, even in the midst of seeming defeat and disas 
 ter, to catch that lofty inspiration which lifts man above 
 the accidents of time and chance that high and holy 
 state of being in which death is swallowed up in victory, 
 and time is lost in eternity ! 
 
 Why should we, who are capable of doing such noble 
 deeds, stoop to do things so little ? Why should we, who 
 have it in our power to make this day the holiest of the 
 year, the dawn of a new era in human affairs, a new 
 sabbath in the calendar of time, belittle it to gratify our 
 appetites, and to make a display of our vanity ? We have 
 built a monument, it is true, and our pride is gratified ; 
 but our hearts are not pleased, for pride and love are 
 strangers they dwell not together. The cold, dumb 
 marble accords well with the naked, sterile grave-yard, 
 and both are a fit monument to the dead ; for the picture 
 they present to the feeling heart is that of a tombstone 
 in the valley of death. 
 
 Pride and love dwell not together. Where love rules 
 flowers bloom and life smiles ; where pride rules, death 
 grins. 
 
 And what ideas have we of the Almighty Ruler of the 
 
12 THE GENIUS OF DEMOCRACY; OR, 
 
 Universe, to suppose that He will suffer to be forgotten 
 the generous and the brave, who poured out their blood 
 like water as libations upon the altar of His truth, and at 
 the same time suffer to remain forever dumb idols that 
 we build to our vanity ? Let us not deceive ourselves ; 
 truth was not vanquished in the fight, and her martyrs 
 are not dead. " They only crossed over the river to rest 
 under the trees." 
 
 That awful line of battle, like a flood of fire, is but 
 waiting the signal of their captain to recross the river 
 and sweep oppression from the earth. 
 
 We had, too, a discourse from the Masonic order a 
 brotherhood whose deeds of charity ought to win our re 
 spect, and provoke us to acts of generous emulation, that 
 would have been most excellent on some more suitable oc 
 casion. 
 
 The modest declaimer of the orator vindicates him and 
 his order from responsibility for this breach of propriety, 
 and throws the blame back on us, who ought to have 
 had a better appreciation of the day. Let us not forget 
 that we too have a temple to build, and that the Master 
 Mason, under whom we work, said, " A greater than Solo 
 mon is here." He vindicated His higli claims by opening 
 the eyes of the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, 
 making the lame walk, and, above all, by preaching glad 
 tidings to the poor. The quaking earth attested His au 
 thority when He entered the valley of death, and heaven 
 veiled its face from this ungrateful deed of man. 
 
 The building of this temple will be no secret, and none 
 will be excluded from the work. The rich and poor, the 
 bond and free, the white and black, the blue and gray, the 
 lion and the lamb in a word, all ages and classes and 
 conditions will be there. 
 
 Not only the virtuous and the good, but, wonderful to 
 tell, the sinner, too, shall take part in this work, ave, even 
 
TUB FALL OF BABYLON. 13 
 
 the Canaanitish woman, whol)egs the crumbs which be 
 long to the dogs, shall not be excluded. 
 
 The foundation of this temple will be the earth re 
 claimed from briars and thorns, and furnished with every 
 appliance needful for the use and convenience of man, and 
 the blue arch above will be its roof. The name of this 
 temple is Liberty, the builder is Love, his square is Jus 
 tice, his compass is Truth, and his empire is Peace. The 
 Master Mason pointed to the lily as the type of this tem 
 ple, and said, " Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed 
 like one of these." Let us not be discouraged ; the lilies 
 are growing in the valley, the spring time is coming, and 
 their bloom will shed a fragrance that will heal the noxious 
 vapors that breed disease and death to man. Let us not 
 forget the type of this temple the lily modest and un 
 assuming. No proud pageant, no glare of glory, no vain 
 pomp, no false parade. Nay, the glory of this temple 
 will be man set free from bondage the bondage of igno 
 rance, of superstition, of ceaseless, hopeless toil. The 
 square is Justice, and because no man can bear that awful 
 measure, every man must release his brother and forgive 
 him his debts. The rich must open his heart to the poor, 
 the strong must lift his arm in behalf of the weak, and 
 the wise must use his wit, his logic, his eloquence, and 
 every man whatever talent God has given him, to shiver 
 the power of the oppressor and shield the innocent from 
 the grasp of his cupidity. The watchword is war, cease 
 less and eternal war war as long as there is a fettered 
 slave or a tyrant s throne on earth. Nor does it matter 
 whether that tyrant is an ambitious despot, who wills to 
 appropriate to himself the fruits of a nation s toil, for his 
 minions and satellites, or some petty Shylock, who would 
 devour a neighborhood. 
 
 Nor does it matter whether that tyrant would keep us 
 in bondage by the juggleries of a superstition, miscalled 
 
14 THE GENIUS OF DEMOCRACY; OR, 
 
 religion, or by the quibbling tricks of a legerdemain 
 dubbed law. When governments become the oppressors 
 of man, whether they assume the form of politics or re 
 ligion, they have no authority from Heaven, and no 
 claim to man s obedience. " Let them who are chief among 
 you be the servants of the rest," is the only commission 
 given, and they who assume any other are pretenders and 
 usurpers. 
 
 Our comrades who fell in the struggle are not dead, 
 and we who survive have not surrendered we dare not 
 surrender, for a hundred bloody fields, with their mangled 
 victims, would rise up in judgment against us. Our glo 
 rious old chief most worthy to be such, for he was truly 
 the servant of all, for whether in defeat or victory, he was 
 in the advance, and bore the brunt of the fight never 
 surrendered. When the storm clouds of defeat and disas 
 ter lowered upon us, he lifted the banner of right higher 
 and higher, until the Angel of the Covenant caught it. 
 from his hand, and flung from the battlements of Hea 
 ven the ensign of Universal Liberty. The brave men who 
 met us in the dread conflict of battle are mustering under 
 this new banner. Let us meet them, not as enemies but 
 as friends, not to destroy one another, but to destroy those 
 wicked powers which have usurped authority on earth to 
 destroy man and make his heritage of good a curse. On 
 the one hand Mammon is mustering his mercenary le 
 gions, and on the other Liberty is marshalling his fiery 
 cohorts. Let us be in the front of the fray, and build for 
 our fallen comrades a monument that will abide for ever, 
 the temple of Liberty. A SOLDIER. 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 15 
 
 CHRISTIANITY; OR, THE AMERICAN 
 GRANGE. 
 
 QUESTION. When is a man not a man ? 
 ANSWER. When he is a coward. 
 
 GUSSIE WILLIAMS. 
 
 MOOKEFIELD, W. VA., 1873. 
 DUDLY W. ADAMSj 
 
 Master of Rational Grange : 
 
 WORTHY BROTHER : There is something so simple, 
 yrt so sublime, iii your organization, that it excites both 
 my wonder and admiration. The sight of a great people 
 silently and noiselessly resuming their sovereign rights 
 and personal freedom, by means of local meetings every 
 where among themselves, all free from mercenary mo 
 tives, looks to me like the laying of the foundation of 
 that temple of Liberty which shall abide on earth for 
 ever. 
 
 Its clear simplicity and fraternal relations are elements 
 of that Peace, whose ever enduring power shall make 
 the earth an abode of happiness for man, and a temple 
 of glory for the Creator. 
 
 It is possible, aye, it is necessary, for your organization 
 to be pushed on until it supersedes and shoves aside all 
 other governments, not only in our own favored laud, 
 but throughout the world. For its origin is divine, its 
 organization perfect, and its mission the everlasting 
 triumph of good on earth. 
 
 The faithful service of the virtuous will render com 
 pulsory governments unnecessary, and exempt all from 
 taxation and mercenary leaders, with their hordes of 
 plunderers ; and the happy fraternal relations subsisting 
 between all, and conserving the good of all, will be a 
 
16 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 service more acceptable to our Creator and Preserver 
 than idol temples and fear-extorted tithes. 
 
 The devil, who is ever on the alert to devise means to 
 stay his tottering empire, is to-day plotting a trick to 
 defeat your wise plans and thwart your benevolent pur 
 poses. 
 
 Having usurped by means of hireling presses and 
 pulpits, and the mercenary leaders of mad political fac 
 tions, absolute powers in these United States, and having 
 abased that power until the great agricultural resources 
 of the country the springs of its wealth are dried up ; 
 and having bloated its licentious carcass by its glutton 
 ous greed until it is ready to die from sheer bestiality, 
 it is preparing to vitalize its dead body, by the spasmodic 
 excitements and external stimulants of a foreign war. 
 
 The beggared and homeless serfs of its shoddy aristo 
 crats, the soul-drivers of those factory hells where child 
 hood is dwarfed, manhood degraded, and womanhood 
 polluted, have been turned out on the world to beg or 
 starve. In times of peace, necessity would drive these 
 poor friendless children of adversity to your organization 
 as a hiding place from the storm and a home for their 
 wants, and this would put an end to the usurpations and 
 exactions which are grinding us all to powder. 
 
 The usurpers who are destroying their country, hear 
 in this contingency the knell of their doom, and see it 
 in the end of their stolen authority ; hence their eager 
 ness to seize on this or any other pretext for war. 
 
 A war? What for? To enlist this paupered popula 
 tion, for the ostensible purpose of chastising a foreign 
 enemy, but for the real and ultimate purpose of convert 
 ing it into a mercenary soldiery, to bolster up their 
 falling power and complete the enslavement and degra 
 dation of the people of this country. 
 
 Say ye this is an idle fear. ^ So said many, year.-- .". ;;>, 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 17 
 
 when a negro body-driving aristocracy in the South were 
 co-operating with a white soul-driving Bondautocracy in 
 the North to precipitate on their country an accursed 
 fratricidal war, which has turned out to be national 
 suicide, the death of liberty and virtue, and the en 
 thronemeut of licentiousness and crime. ^ 
 
 Beware, my brother, beware ! and heed this warning, 
 though it come from one of the private sentinels on the 
 walls of the City of Safety, which we are building for 
 ourselves, our children, and our children s children for 
 ever. Interpose your influence and all the power of 
 your organization to avert a catastrophe so dire. And 
 when we shall have counterplotted the machinations of 
 our enemies, and finished our good work, glory and 
 honor will crown our labors, and the grateful hearts of 
 freemen will embalm our memories forever. For know, 
 if we succeed in finishing our work, we will have, not a 
 mere professed liberty, but the substantial blessing of an 
 ever enduring freedom. 
 
 What then ? Man will have triumphed on earth, and 
 the heavens will shed their dewy tears of gladness, and 
 pour on us the genial sunlight of perpetual spring. The 
 early and later rains will fructify the earth, and its 
 teaming harvests will furnish a superabundance- of bread 
 for all. 
 
 Anger and revenge will give place to love, and peace 
 will dwell in all our borders. Disease and pestilence 
 ^will flee from the happy face of good the fatted calf 
 will be slain, and music and dancing will take the placo 
 of sorrow and tears. Oh, if we but had the courage to 
 enter this promised land, the faith to know that cowardice 
 is the only sin man ever committed against his Creator ; 
 could we but impress this truth on the young men of our 
 country, then would come the triumph of 
 
THE GENIUS OF MORTALITY. 
 
 THE GENIUS OF MORTALITY. 
 
 Then ev ry boy would be a Tell 
 And every tyrant see the hell, 
 Which justice made when time began, 
 For robbers of the rights of man. 
 
 And every laddie would be glad, 
 And ev ry lassie love her lad, 
 For noble deeds of manly pride, 
 Would make each one a blushing bride. 
 
 And every pair would have a home, 
 And ev ry good to them would come, 
 For this is Heaven s eternal plan, 
 To give its ev ry good to man. 
 
 And not to puffed-up flesh and blood, 
 Poor scoffers at a world of good, 
 Provisions of eternal love, 
 Made by Him who rules above. 
 
 Too proud to see in nature s field 
 The joyous harvest earth Avould yield, 
 If high and noble deeds would prove 
 Man worthy of his Maker s love. 
 
 They ask for him who owns it all, 
 A sacrifice for ev ry fall, 
 As if a father would be mad, 
 Because some darliqg child is sad. 
 
 They ask it nay -to feed their lust 
 And sink our souls to grov Iing dust, 
 For justly Heaven curses all 
 AV r ho barter freedom for priostly thrall. 
 
THE GENIUS OF MORTALITY. 19 
 
 The purpose high, the kindling eye, 
 Sends flashes thro the cloud wrapt sky, 
 And sees the lovely Eden nigh, 
 Where even mortals shall not die. 
 
 Sees death is but a phantom fright, 
 That gives to priestly rule its might, 
 That gives to mortals endless pain, 
 And binds them fast with servile chain. 
 
 Then tell thy laddie be a man, 
 And thus fulfil great nature s plan, 
 A revelation then he ll see, 
 From Heaven making mortals free. 
 
 And full and free will be the joy 
 Of ev ry lassie, when her boy 
 Wrapt in a flame of patriot fire, 
 The image of the kingly sire, 
 
 Demands the rights the Heavens give, 
 In freedom here on earth to live, 
 Exempt from kingly, priestly rule, 
 And boasted science servile school. 
 
 To think, and act, and live and love, 
 The gifts of Him who rules above, 
 Nay time itself shall end its hour, 
 When man resumes his rightful pow r. 
 
 For time is but a sickly fear, 
 
 That hampers man with childish gear, 
 
 Eternity the living joy 
 
 Of life set free from time s alloy. 
 
 From kingly tricks and priestly guile, 
 The harsh command, the crafty smile, 
 From custom s pow r and habit s use, 
 And fashion s fickle, thin abuse. 
 
20 111E GENIUS Ob MORTALITY. 
 
 The masking in uncomely gear, 
 The charms which Grace and Beauty wear, 
 Till chalk white cheeks all pale and dead, 
 Must barter nature s blush for lead. 
 
 Wake, wake, sweet hour of life reborn 
 And quickly blow thy clarion horn, 
 Relink the chain which death did sever, 
 And bid our youth bloom on forever. 
 
 A SWITZEE BOY 
 
 THE END. 
 
THE FREEMAN 1 S GRA VE. 21 
 
 THE FREEMAN S GRAVE. 
 
 FAREWELL, thou bravest of the brave ; 
 
 Patriot soldier, fare thee well. 
 The muskets salute o er thy grave 
 
 Alone can break the silent spell ; 
 
 Which holds thy weeping friends in arms, 
 
 The friends whom friendship s chains can bind ; 
 
 But not the dread of war s alarms 
 Can chain the spirit of their mind. 
 
 For, born like thee in freedom s land, 
 Like thee they ll fill a freeman s grave 
 
 Before they ll kiss the tyrant s hand 
 Or bow before oppression s wave. 
 
 The freeman s grave, oh, dreary waste ! 
 
 Whence life and joy and hope hath fled ; 
 No shroud his moveless limbs to grace, 
 
 No marble marks his sleeping head. 
 
 Not e en a rough, unpolished board 
 
 Betwixt him and the clammy clay, 
 To shield him from the vermin horde 
 
 Which ere he s cold makes him their prey. 
 
 Instinctively I dread this doom, 
 
 Yet even thus would dare to die 
 Would some fond friend come near my tomb, 
 
 A sigh for me, one long, last sigh. 
 
 Would some kind hand whose rapturous touch 
 Once woke the warm heart s wildest thrill, 
 
 Plant flowers above my sleeping dust 
 To bloom and say, I love thee still. 
 
 Would neath affection s shower of tears 
 Those flowers of memory sweetly bloom, 
 
 And on the waste of long, long years 
 Shed fragrance round my lowly tomb. 
 
 "A SOLDIER." 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 THE FIRST WITNESS. 
 
 THE first witness I saw wore the semblance of Washing 
 ton, and his name was the Genius of Patriotism. He said : 
 
 What shall I call them ? I once called them fellow- 
 citizens. That term would not be applicable now. 
 They have no country to be citizens of. They have 
 voted away their country to the priests and poli 
 ticians. Shall I call them patriots ? It would be a mock 
 ery to call them patriots, who, like Esau, have sold their 
 heritage for a mess of pottage. They have exchanged 
 the substantial blessings of a good government, justice, 
 economy, liberty and prosperity, for Mormonism, free- 
 loveism, mesmerism, spiritualism, woman s rights, negro 
 suffrage, and miscegenation, i. e. lust, infidelity, insanity, 
 folly, crime, chaos, and anarchy. Ten stars blotted out 
 from their political constellation, white silver stars, once 
 as bright as the brightest that shone there, stars which 
 shed upon the earth the brightest genius of the Caucasian 
 race. In their stead they propose to pin to the sky, with 
 bayonets, black negro stars. Patriots ! No, let me call 
 them slaves. Each one has around his neck a noose with 
 a double drawstring ; the preacher has hold of one end, the 
 politician pulls the other. Slaves I yes, I will show them 
 their base servility. I will show them that they are but 
 the menials of that upstart usurper, the bondautocrat. 
 I will show it to them, so that when their children grow 
 up (here a little boy playing close by stopped to listen) 
 play on, my little bright-eyed boy ; don t listen to me. 
 It will be time enough for thee to know the degradation 
 which thy father is preparing for thee many years hence. 
 Yes, thou mightest learn it many years hence, and still 
 have long enough time to suffer. 
 
 Play on ; I will not show thee the dark and ominous 
 cloud which hangs over thy future, lest the bright smile 
 which plays on thy innocent, unconscious face, should 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 23 
 
 depart forever. For so plain does it seem to me, that I 
 think even your little eyes, though unused to looking at 
 things in the distance, could tell what this cloud means. 
 Play on. It will only be a little while until those little 
 hands will be toiling to pay back to the bondautocrat the 
 money he lent the government to buy thy father, to be sent 
 to the war and lose his arm. Tis only a thousand dollars. 
 The bondautocrat s wife wants a shawl ; tis the lady s 
 whim and she must have it, even if you should not have 
 a dollar left to buy the necessaries of life for the partner 
 of your degradation. And there is thy little playfellow ; 
 his father fought for thirteen dollars a month, and 
 was killed the third month of the service. Thirty-nine 
 dollars ! Don t the bondautocracy insure life cheap ? Your 
 little orphan playfellow will soon pay that, and then he 
 can help you. But what did your father fight for, bleed 
 for, die for ? To please the preacher and politician, the 
 servile ministers of bondautocracy. What did they fight 
 for ? To change nature s laws, to thwart the decrees of 
 Heaven, to make the black man white, and the white man. 
 black. Whither art thou drifting, my boy ? Thy lin 
 eage, thy name, whither is it drifting, my boy? That 
 name which once brought the pretty blush of love to thy 
 mother s fair cheek. I remember how, when the blush 
 deepened over that pure white skin, the hand of chastity 
 chased it away ; and thus did it come and go, blush after 
 blush, until passion subsided in the sweet pink-tinted rose 
 of virtuous love. Where will be the blush of thy bride, 
 my boy? Ask thy father who has been fighting to win 
 for thee a negro bride, that beautiful blush hid under the 
 thick rhinoceros skin of the negro. Thy father s bride 
 had pretty blue eyes. 
 
 "And as soft was her eye 
 As the blue of the sky, 
 
 When morn s distilling its dews from above; 
 Its brightness was veiled in the mists of its love." 
 
 Where will be the pure cerulean blue in the eye of thy 
 bride ? Mixed and muddled with the cold, glassy glare 
 of the negro s eye. Well could thy father say of his 
 pretty bride, 
 
24 THE U RE AT TRIAL. 
 
 "All the stars of heaven ; 
 The deep blue noon of night lit by an orb, 
 Which looks a spirit, or a spirit s world ; 
 The hues of twilight, the sun s gorgeous coming; 
 His setting indescribable, which fills 
 My eye with pleasant tears, as I behold 
 Him sink and feel my heart float softly with him 
 Along that western paradise of clouds; 
 The forest shade, the green bough, the bird s voice, 
 The vesper bird s, which seems to sing of love: 
 All these are nothing to my eyes and heart 
 Like Mary s face ; I turn from earth and heaven 
 To gaze on it." 
 
 What wilt thou say of thy bride, my boy ? the negro 
 weuch thy father would wed thee to ? 
 
 As black as is her hide, 
 
 So low must be my pride, 
 
 For her smell is as strong as the smell of a skunk; 
 How can I wed a negro unless I first get drunk ? 
 
 But thy name, my boy ; thy father s name, that name 
 to which thy mother gave her youth, her beauty, her 
 obedience, and her love: whither is drifting that name? 
 Alas ! I see it on the black tide of miscegenation drift 
 ing to oblivion. You may violate nature s laws, but 
 you cannot escape the penalty. God has made your 
 race the most beautiful in the world ; and if you attempt 
 to destroy that beauty, he will blot you out. Look at 
 that filly : how slender and tapering are her legs ; how 
 springy her step ; her broad, intelligent forehead, lit by 
 big, bright eyes ! Look at her mane, falling in silky 
 waves over her neck ! How gracefully, too, her tail 
 swings in the air! easily adjusting itself to every new 
 position, as if to steady and balance all her actions. 
 Among all the animals in the world none is so beautiful. 
 Will she consort with the dull, stupid ass? Will sho 
 consent to be the mother of the slow, servile mule? See 
 how she spurns him with her heels, and then dashes 
 wildly over the plains. See how she turns her head 
 back, as if in scorn, hurling at the ugly beast she has 
 left in the distance a neigh of proud mockery. With a 
 higher and nobler instinct than man s boasted reason, 
 she refuses to insult nature by degrading her own being 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 25 
 
 and marring her own beauty. Not till man, imbruted 
 man (I beg the brute s pardon, bedeviled man), wal 
 lowed in the filthy mire of licentiousness, and smeared 
 all over with the slime of cupidity, until not only his 
 reason is perverted, but even the lower instincts of his 
 animal nature are debased and degraded ; I say not till 
 man has haltered that filly with his iron curb, and 
 chained her feet with hobbles, will she yield to the em 
 braces of the ugly beast which nature has made for the 
 drudgery of servitude. 
 
 13ut the same almighty power which set bounds to the 
 waves of the deep has said to the waves of human folly 
 and human crime, thus far shall ye go, and no farther. 
 The Creator has denied to this mongrel race the power 
 of reproducing its kind. So of all mongrel races. In a 
 few years they are lost in extinction. But these analyz 
 ers of nature teach another lesson, which the people of 
 this country may learn to their own profit. For whom 
 is miscegenation intended ? for what class of the people ? 
 "Will the pretty daughters of the bondautocrat marry a 
 big buck negro ? Will his rich son kiss the thick, husky 
 lips of a negro wench? Hardly, I think. In this money- 
 loving age the one can buy a lover of her own choosing; 
 the other too can buy beauty and accomplishments in his 
 own circle, and a half-dozen pretty mistresses among the 
 poor besides. For whom then is it intended? Why, 
 who is it that bears all the wrongs of society? Who 
 has to dress plainer, eat less, and work harder to pay the 
 taxes ? Who has to go to the battle-field when war 
 comes, to suffer, to bleed, and to die ? on whose backs 
 are these curses saddled ? The boudautocracy s? Was 
 there ever such a war before as the one which is just 
 over ? Were taxes ever so high ? Did you ever see the 
 bondautocrats dress so finely and fare so sumptuously ? 
 "Did you ever see them before spend so lavishly, and still 
 have so much to spend ? Did you meet their sons in the 
 ranks of the army? How many of them do you suppose 
 got killed in the war ? How many are hobbling about 
 on crutches ? How many of them are going around with 
 one or both arms off, begging bread ? Think you that, if 
 they were all mustered into line, that you have a corpo- 
 B 3 
 
26 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 ral s guard? I think I have a guess what class of the 
 people miscegenation is intended for. But if I tell, it will 
 offend the bondautocrat and his servile ministers, the 
 preachers, and the politicians. I happened to hear the 
 bargain which was struck between them. I heard the 
 bondautocrat say to the priest and politician, 
 
 " These asses (negro slaves) are pretty good beasts of 
 burden ; but they are too slow for the times. They did 
 very well in old fogy times, when everything had to be 
 toted or hauled in wagons. But, my dear sirs, in this 
 age of steam and electricity they are too slow, entirely 
 too slow. Besides, they are too ignorant and improvi 
 dent; their slow speed and wasteful habits take too much 
 out of the net profits. With such unprofitable animals as 
 these it takes at least three generations to become a million 
 aire. My good friends, can this matter be remedied ? 
 I call you my friends, because I believe you are." 
 
 " Yes, sir" (both speaking at once), " we are your 
 friends to the full length of your purse-strings." 
 
 " Well, my good friends, my purse-strings are pretty 
 long; and if you can correct this evil, they will be much 
 longer, sirs, much longer. 7 
 
 "We have already," answered the politician, "pre 
 pared the way for this business. The negro slaves have 
 been set free ; and now if we can manage to get a 
 cross between them and the poor white trash, we will 
 have just such a set of slaves as you desire. A race 
 of mules, sir, between the ass and the horse, more 
 sprightly and active, sir, than the ass, and more dura- 
 hie and submissive to burdens than the horse. My 
 friend the preacher, and myself, have agreed upon a 
 plan which will make the thing a certain success. It 
 shall be my business to have laws enacted requiring the 
 herd-pens (free schools), where the colts are trained, to be 
 common, so that the colts of the horses (white children) 
 and the colts of the asses (negro children) shall be trained 
 together. By a law of association things which are 
 kept constantly together will assimilate in disposition, 
 temper, and feeling. Besides that, the tendency of all 
 earthly things is downward to the dust. The young of all 
 animals are more ready to catch vicious habits than good 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 27 
 
 ones. Now, sir, upon these two maxims in morals we 
 have based our calculations that the horse colts will soon 
 become so much like the ass colts, that the natural 
 repugnance which the Creator has established between 
 them will be so far overcome, that we will have no diffi 
 culty in making them cohabit with each other. Thus 
 you see, good master bondautocrat, we will furnish you 
 with a race of mules much more serviceable than the asses, 
 and much more tractable than the horses. My friend, 
 the priest here, who will have the superintendence of 
 those herd-pens, will order a course of training for these 
 colts suitable to the purpose." 
 
 "You just bring the colts all together," answered the 
 preacher, " and I will be answerable for the mixing. I 
 have in my theological chest a powder which will act 
 like a charm. You can both testify how successful I 
 have been in medicining the old horses. Equality, sugared 
 with universal suffrage, I have administered to them with 
 the happiest results. I have laughed in my sleeve, gentle 
 men, and I have no doubt you have too, to see how 
 easily these animals are deceived; how willing they 
 are to take the shadow for the substance, the mere prom 
 ise for the thing itself. Especially have I been amused 
 to see how you lead them around. Mr. Politician, I have 
 seen many of them haltered and led to the polls by others 
 to vote ; and although they were voting the sentiments 
 of others, and voting away their own liberties, yet did 
 they prance around and neigh as proudly as if they were 
 free, and had no halters on. I then thought to myself, 
 Well, it won t take long to make asses of you. Indeed, 
 although they still retained the characteristics of horses, 
 the noise they made bore a strong resemblance to the 
 braying of the ass. Now the new powder I have is only 
 the expressed essence of the old powder, equality; but 
 its chief beauty is its name, miscegenation. It is a most 
 admirable thing. In the first place, it is new ; and in 
 these times, when every change means reform, that is a 
 great deal. I know plenty of people who would be dis 
 gusted with mongrelism ; but they think miscegenation 
 the sum of excellence. How much there is now a days 
 m big, high-sounding words ! I ve preached many a ser- 
 
28 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 mon to these people, which did not contain a single 
 thought, a mere jumble of big words harmoniously ar 
 ranged, smoothly connected and musically spoken ; and 
 although they did not learn a thing from them, for there 
 was nothing in them to learn, yet did they praise them 
 to the very echo. Only the other day I preached a sermon, 
 which I prefaced with the declaration that nobody could 
 be a Christian who did not understand theology. My 
 discourse was made up of a number of fine sentences 
 which I had picked out of the writings of learned divines 
 who had written in defense of our sect. Indeed, I had 
 to laugh at the thing myself, for it looked like Joseph s 
 coat of many colors ; nay, worse, for the different patches 
 had been patched on without regard to either harmony or 
 contrast. Big and little, white and gray, blue and green, 
 were pinned together just as I had grabbed them up out 
 of my old sermon-bag ; really, I don t know which 
 amused me most, the folly of the sermon, or the igno 
 rance and credulity of my hearers. They called it splen 
 did, grand, beautiful, eloquent. I heard afterward that 
 one of the congregation objected to it, and made this 
 very plausible complaint of it, that he didn t understand 
 theology, and therefore could not be a Christian. He 
 went on to controvert it by some quotations from that 
 old fable-book, the Bible. He said that he had learned 
 from that old book, that the way of the Christian, though 
 but a narrow path, is yet so plain that a wayfaring man, 
 even if he be a fool, need not err therein. He said that 
 he had further read that the Author of Christianity him 
 self, when on earth having met with one who was blind, 
 touched his eyes, and immediately the sight of the blind 
 man was restored. It gave such joy to the blind to be 
 able to see, that he went about telling all whom he met 
 and praising his deliverer. But the scribes and Pharisees 
 said to the man whose sight had been restored, Who was 
 he that opened your eyes, and how did he do it ? tell us 
 the science, the philosophy of the thing ; make the things 
 plain according to our doctrines, our theology. He an 
 swered them, I neither know who he was nor how he did 
 it; but this 1 know, that whereas I was blind now I 
 see. But the Pharisees reviled him, and cast him out 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 29 
 
 because he believed his sight was restored, when he 
 could not tell who did it and how it was done. I was 
 not a little disturbed," said the priest, " when I saw my 
 good horses so closely-cornered. I was afraid this fellow 
 would put some bad notions into their head, and they 
 would not be so serviceable to me as they had been. How 
 ever, I was soon relieved, for directly they laid back their 
 ears, and kicked the fellow away as an infidel and heretic." 
 
 The politician smiled, and remarked that answer was 
 very conclusive, if not very logical. 
 
 " My dear sir," answered the priest, " the conclusion 
 is the end of logic, as it is of everything else." 
 
 " I was just thinking," said the politician, " that it looks 
 a little inconsistent in your Protestant sects, who were 
 born of heresy, and have lived all your lives under the 
 damning curse of excommunication, to be casting out 
 heretics." 
 
 " People who live in glass houses," said the priest, 
 " ought not to throw stones. I observe that nowadays 
 when you can t answer the arguments of your political 
 opponents in your deliberative bodies, that you call them 
 rebels and traitors, and then expel them. You yourself 
 voted to expel a member of Congress just in the manner 
 stated above. Now, if I remember rightly, you told me 
 once that your grandfather fell at the battle of Lexing 
 ton, just after the loyal General Pitcairn, of his majesty s 
 service, had called out to him and his comrades, Lay 
 down your arms and surrender, you rebels and traitors ! 
 If we commit the same offense, we have at least some 
 excuse for it. Our loyalty is a little older than yours, 
 over two centuries. Yours is scarcely more than three 
 score and ten ; the limit of human life. Indeed, I know 
 among you some of the most noisy and clamorous at that, 
 whose loyalty was very questionable at the breaking out 
 of the late war." 
 
 " My friend, you speak with a good deal of warmth : 
 coolly," replied the politician. 
 
 "Sir, you must excuse me," replied the priest, still a 
 little tart. "I can bear to be told of my faults by an 
 honest man ; but to be lectured by one who has com 
 mitted the same offense, and that too in a more flagrant 
 
 3* 
 
30 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 and outrageous manner, is enough to nettle the patience 
 of a saint." 
 
 "And that," said the politician, smiling, "is more than 
 you profess to be." 
 
 This hit was so palpable that the priest laughed, and 
 then remarked: "My dear sir, let us leave off this un 
 profitable discussion, and turn to the herd-pen business. 
 This," he added, "if you will allow me to use that 
 eminently philosophical, practical, and expressive phrase 
 of the times, will, I think, pay better." 
 
 " My dear sir," put in the bondautocrat, who had been 
 occupied during this discussion on some business calcula 
 tion ; "repeat that phrase. It falls on -my ear as does 
 the soft restrained no of the yielding damsel upon the 
 ear of her lover. Make it pay! Ah, there is. music in 
 that. I hear in it, sir, the jingle of gold, and gold means 
 loyalty, power, honor, office, royalty. Loyalty, why, bless 
 me, I took contracts from the government to furnish sup 
 plies. I had out my agents, I don t know how many, to 
 buy provisions, horses, and I d like to have said men, but 
 I guess the word horse will cover that species too ; in 
 deed, we bought some of them almost as cheap. Loyalty ! 
 bless the word, it made my pile just ten times what it 
 was, with a fair prospect for doubling every five* years: 
 that beats compound interest two to one. Power ! why, 
 my friends, am I not just making a contract with you to 
 make a new breed of mules, to create a race of slaves 
 fit for this enlightened and progressive age? Power, 
 gentlemen ! are we not about to harmonize discords, rec 
 oncile antipathies, and reverse the order of nature ; aye, 
 more, annul the decrees of Heaven itself? Who will have 
 the hardihood not to bow down and worship our god? 
 Whoever he may be, let him remember the fate of the ob 
 stinate Hebrew who was cast into the lions den." 
 
 " My good friend," interrupted the preacher, agitated 
 and trembling, " don t repeat that sentence. There is no 
 music in it to my ears." 
 
 "Why, what s the matter, friend priest?" asked the 
 bondautocrat. " What means all this consternation ? 
 Didn t you tell me that you had no faith in that old book 
 of Jewish fables ?" 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 31 
 
 "I have none, sir," answered the priest; " but even 
 devils believe and tremble. Did not even the fierce lions 
 tremble and crouch before the gaze of the friendless cap 
 tive, who .refused to bow down and worship the heathen s 
 god ? It was the same Daniel who was sent for to inter 
 pret the vision of judgment which startled the impious 
 Belshazzar from his licentious revelries. A mysterious 
 hand passed over the wall, leaving behind it a blaze of 
 fire. The godless king turned pale and shook like a man 
 with ague ; the Chaldean soothsayers and interpreters 
 trembled before the fearful vision : not so the prophet 
 who had refused to worship the god of men and kings. 
 He boldly dipped into the quivering flame the pencil of 
 prophecy, and as he traced it along the wall letters of fire 
 followed it, blazing forth the doom of the Chaldean em 
 pire, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. Now, when I re 
 member that the offense of the wicked king was the 
 Lord thy God, in whose hands thy breath is and whose 
 are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified, I thought I saw 
 the same dreadful hand on that wall." 
 
 The bondautocrat with a smile of contempt turned away 
 from the preacher, and addressing himself to the politician, 
 said: " Friend, I see we will have to manage this busi 
 ness ourselves. It is a bold undertaking, and will require 
 stout hearts to carry it through. This chicken-livered 
 priest will be of no service to us. Well," he added, " the 
 fewer agents we have the better it will pay them." 
 
 " The better it will pay," repeated the priest, recover 
 ing from his fright, "the better it will pay. Pay, pay! 
 that s what I work for, that s what I live for, that s what 
 I preach for. Pay, pay: what will you have me to do?" 
 
 "Go to the devil," said the bondautocrat, with a sneer. 
 
 " Go to the devil, "repeated the priest: " go to the devil. 
 Willitpay ? Will it pay ? Well, wait a little," he added, 
 " till 1 catch my breath, and get over this scare, and I 
 think I will be ready to start." 
 
 " I am sure," said the politician, " you will have to keep 
 this man in your service, for he is prepared to go a little 
 further in the business than I am." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Priest," said the bondautocrat, " let us hear 
 Boipething more of this mule-breeding business." 
 
32 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 " As a proof of my capacity to serve you in this matter," 
 said the priest, " I was just giving you an illustration of 
 my success in horse training. When our friend here, the 
 politician, shall have all the colts gathered into the herft- 
 pens, I will proceed to administer the powder I spoke of, 
 viz., miscegenation. As the thing is repulsive to the 
 natural taste, it will be necessary to disguise it a little 
 with an admixture of something more palatable. You ve 
 seen likely those little slices of bread and butter called 
 Sunday-school books. The flour these things are made 
 of is brought from the mill of truth: but falsehood is so 
 largely mixed in the dough as to change both the flavor 
 and effect of this bread upon the system. Once get the 
 taste perverted, and you have a morbid appetite which 
 you can modify gradually to suit any kind of food you 
 may wish to give. If you will examine these pieces, you 
 will find them not true and natural, but entirely artificial; 
 the bread itself made out of cheat, and the butter nothing 
 more than the milky whey of phariseeism. To drop the 
 figure, you will find in reading these books that they con 
 tain no true picture of human life ; but the characters who 
 figure in them are all either little angels or little devils. 
 It don t take children long to find out this imposition, and 
 then one of two results must follow : either they will be 
 lieve nothing and become infidel, or else with that selfish 
 ness so common to human nature, they will assume the 
 good character and become Pharisees, which is only 
 another form of infidelity. For, once wrap around a human 
 soul the phylactery of pharisaism, and you have made it 
 impervious to truth. You can hardly persuade one to take 
 medicine who is sure in his own mind that he is not sick. 
 The next medicine we administer, and it is an admirable 
 preparation, is the yellow-back novel. Equally far from 
 nature and truth as the other, this is intended to act upon 
 other organs and develop other passions, to stir up licen 
 tious lusts, and to fill the mind with lascivious images. 
 These act like a charm. After reading a few of these 
 they are unable to restrain their animal passions at all, 
 but are ready for anything which will indulge them, how 
 ever brutal it may be. But the very best thing to facili 
 tate this business will be to introduce into these herd- 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 33 
 
 pens (common schools), as guides and leaders for the 
 colts, a new species of mares, which are, I believe, natives 
 of this country. The unnatural shape of these big- ugly 
 mares serves to deceive both the horse colts and the ass 
 colts, so that both can be easily persuaded to follow them. 
 By nature they are abortions, brought into this breathing 
 world before their time, scarce half made up. They are 
 raised in the mountains of pharisaism, and fed upon 
 laurel, nightshade, hellebore, and other noxious weeds of 
 infidelity. They don t often breed; but whether it is 
 because their hideousness makes them disgusting to the 
 other sex, or because being so unnatural they are devoid 
 of those affections and passions which lead other animals 
 to reproduce their kind, has not been determined. But 
 the devil or some other enemy of this world has furnished 
 them with big, filthy-looking udders, in which settles the 
 distilled essence of the poisonous herbs they feed upon. 
 These udders are supplied with as many teats as the dif 
 ferent kind of poisonous herbs they eat. Some of these 
 creatures have only one teat, and it gives out a milk which 
 is according to the herb it feeds on, either mesmerism, 
 spiritualism, freeloveism, mormonism, equality, or what 
 not. But others have all these teats, and in addition oiut 
 other big black one protruding from the bottom of the 
 udder, and reaching nearly to the ground. There seems 
 to be a duct or channel of communication leading from all 
 the other teats into this one, and pouring into it all their 
 different kinds of poison. Here they are mixed and dis 
 tilled into the quintessence of poison. This teat is mis 
 cegenation, and when pressed or sucked it gives out a 
 yellow, sickly, fetid matter called mongrelism. I ve no 
 doubt both you gentlemen know from the description the 
 animals I allude to." 
 
 " I would take them to be," said the politician, with a 
 knowing smile, " those animals commonly called the 
 strong-minded. If," continued the politician, " you can 
 once get the colts to follow these creatures and suck them, 
 I am sure we would have no further trouble. The ass 
 colts being naturally low and near the ground will suck 
 them without any difficulty ; but the horse, which nature 
 has lifted higher above the ground, will not bo brought to 
 
34 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 it so easily. It will be, in the first place, a little incon 
 venient ; and then there is a something in the nature of 
 all animals except snakes, a pride which rebels against 
 the idea of stooping, groveling, crawling." 
 
 The bondautocrat here remarked, in an under-tone, 
 "I think I know some exceptions to this rule besides 
 snakes." 
 
 "Your remark, Mr. Politician," put in the preacher, 
 "brings out a fact, which shows how perfectly those 
 animals are suited to our purpose. You see they have 
 other teats higher up, and coming down at intervals: 
 mesmerism, spiritualism, freeloveism, etc. These other 
 teats they can suck without getting on their knees, and 
 besides, they are not quite so disgusting ; so you see a 
 skillful feeder will work them down so gradually that 
 they will get on their knees before they are aware of it." 
 
 " But, gentlemen," said the bondautocrat, " what will 
 become of my colts ? tell me. Since this thought has 
 come into my mind I don t much like the business." 
 
 "Mr. Bondautocrat" (both speaking at once), "you 
 need give yourself no uneasiness on that score. Why, 
 my dear sir," continued the politician, "you can have a 
 nice little herd-pen of your own, where your colts can be 
 trained to your own mind. Indeed, neither Mr. Priest 
 nor myself expect to train our colts after the fashion we 
 have been describing, any further than will be necessary 
 to fit them to take our place when we are gone. We will 
 use the poor white trash for this purpose, sir ; the 
 poor white trash, the scrub breed which we bought up 
 to do the drudgery of the w^r, the vulgar masses, sir, on 
 whose shoulders we are quietly shifting the expenses of 
 that same war, together with the heavily accumulating 
 costs of government. It is astonishing, sir, how well all 
 these things are working together to further our plans. 
 The war was the most fortunate event of all. It created 
 the necessity for an immense amount of money. That 
 money you gentlemen loaned to the government at a 
 pretty high rate of interest ; indeed, the debt was more 
 than doubled in this way. The government gave its 
 promise to pay for many a dollar which wasn t worth a 
 half-dollar ; I am sure that more than half of the debt 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 35 
 
 was made by these three things, frauds, speculations, 
 and the exorbitant premiums the government paid for the 
 money it borrowed." 
 
 To this the bondautocrat answered rather angrily, "I 
 do not see the drift of your argument, sir. Do you mean 
 to question my integrity, or the validity of my claims 
 against the government?" 
 
 "Not by any means, my dear sir," said the politician ; 
 "I meant simply to state a fact; and that fact, so far 
 from being derogatory to you, is one of the highest com 
 pliments to your financial ability. You managed to loan 
 your money to the government for more than double 
 what it was worth, exacting, at the same time, a condi 
 tion, that is, exemption from taxation, which will double 
 it again after a while. My dear sir, I thought we politi 
 cians were sharp fellows, but this beats us three to one. 
 By the way, I ve thought often that your profession did 
 not deal as liberally by ours as you ought to. It was by 
 and through us that you have obtained those special 
 privileges which make you the ruling power of this 
 country ; and yet when we ask for some liberal remuner 
 ation, such as will enable us to live handsomely when 
 the shifting whims of the rabble shall retire us from office, 
 you refuse it, and we are compelled to sell ourselves to 
 some new master, as we did not long ago to the whisky 
 monopolists, in order to make the rise. I cannot but 
 think, sir, that in this matter you stand in your own 
 light. It increases the number of your profession and 
 puts more burdens on the backs of the people." 
 
 " You politicians," retorted the bondautocrat, sharply, 
 " are like leeches, you are never satisfied ; your cry is all 
 the time, more. You are a reckless set of spendthrifts ; 
 your extravagant demands would break us up if we did 
 not manage by skillful stratagems to shift the burden on 
 somebody. Whom will we put the burden on, if not the 
 people? Don t be squeamish about the matter. The 
 people have many backs, good, strong, square backs too. 
 What else are they fit for but to bear burdens? As a 
 proof, look how patiently they submit. Like the camels, 
 they even get down on their knees to receive them. Ay, 
 worse ; for when the camel is overloaded he will refu.se 
 
36 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 to get up ; but these creatures, when you overload them, 
 will ask you to change their natures and make out of 
 them a mongrel race of mules, that they may be better 
 fitted for their servitude. Don t talk to me, sir, about the 
 people, This stuff may do to tickle their ears, while you 
 impose some new burden on them ; but to one who sees 
 their menial subserviency, such twaddle is disgusting. 
 The fact is I can t see how you are going to make mules 
 by crossing such creatures with asses, for they are no 
 better than asses themselves. Why, think of this fact 
 for one moment. In the brief space of six years, at one 
 dash I might say, burdens have been placed on their 
 backs, such burdens as it took the governments of 
 Europe, which you call despotic, a hundred years to put 
 upon the backs of their serfs. Yes, in the brief space of 
 six years the burden of debt has been piled up to nearly 
 three billions, the annual expenses quadrupled, tens of 
 thousands of idle, vagabond negroes fed and clothed at 
 their cost, the original plan of their government by mcar.s 
 of States abolished, and military satrapies set up in their 
 stead ; their ancient Constitution utterly ignored in their 
 national assembly, the chief executive office and the 
 supreme judiciary paralyzed by legislative restrictions, 
 and a system of social law adopted which proposes the 
 conversion of their own children into a mongrel race of 
 mules, that they may be the better able to carry the vast 
 additional burdens which inevitably belong to their 
 future. I venture the assertion, without fear of success 
 ful contradiction by any facts which have accrued in the 
 past, or which may accrue in the future, that no people in 
 Europe would permit so many and so great changes in 
 their political and social systems without a convulsion 
 which would swallow up the thrones of their royal mas 
 ters. I ought perhaps to except the serfs of Russia, who 
 never had any idea of what freedom is ; indeed, I was not 
 a little amused to see them receive not long since w r ith 
 acclamations of joy the edict of their royal master, that 
 henceforth he would be the one, sole, absolute master of 
 his people, and that he would hold in his own hands, and 
 at his disposal, the life and property of every man, woman, 
 and child in his vast empire. Tis true he did this in the 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 37 
 
 name of freedom, but the object of the czar was not that 
 the serfs might be free, but that their masters might be 
 slaves ; not that any man in Russia might be free, but 
 that every man in Russia might be a slave ; something 
 after your mode of freeing the negroes in the South, Mr. 
 Politician," said the bondautocrat, with a smile. "Poor 
 old decrepit Austria ! I would except her too, if she was 
 not beneath all notice. Indeed, her people have been 
 slaves so long, even tradition and fables give no account 
 of when they were free. Gentlemen," continued the 
 bondautocrat, " when I consider all these facts, notorious, 
 glaring facts, this mule-breeding business seems to me to 
 be a work of supererogation, a useless expense. Nor 
 am I in the habit, like you, Mr. Politician, of spending 
 money when there is no necessity for it. That system 
 of doing business don t pay. So," continued the bondau 
 tocrat, turning to the priest with a smile of mingled pity 
 and contempt, " we will save you the trouble and ex 
 pense of your proposed visit to his Satanic majesty. I 
 think it won t pay. Pray, sir, what do you think about 
 it? Speak out."" 
 
 " Gentlemen," answered the priest, after some little 
 reflection, " it seems to me that you have only looked at 
 the surface of things. I am better acquainted with 
 the people than either of you. I have been more inti 
 mately associated with them ; I ve had more to do 
 with them. This ignorance and frivolity you see 
 floating on the surface are not everything. No, there 
 is a deep current, a soul, a wave of fire, under the drift 
 you ve been looking at. Let some Hampden, some Lu 
 ther, some Voltaire, some Patrick Henry, with the hand 
 of inspiration, pull this drift apart and let into the smoul 
 dering fire, beneath, the air of truth, and you would see 
 a conflagration such as the world has never witnessed. 
 Then, sir, the priest would have plenty of company to 
 the devil. We would start in a hurry, sirs, pay or no 
 pay. Nor would we be long in going, for the human 
 soul, when once waked up, is a consuming fire to those 
 who have trifled with it arid betrayed its confidence. 
 The condition of things you see around you is not natural, 
 but all artificial. It has been brought about gradually 
 
 4 
 
38 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 and by a long system of training. I know this because 
 I ve had a heap to do with the training; and besides, I 
 can well remember when things were not as they now are. 
 I can remember when it was necessary for a preacher to 
 be a Christian, for the representative of the people to 
 be a patriot, and when the rich man, in order to be popular 
 and influential, had to be honest, kind, and benevolent. 
 But now the priest is most esteemed who evades the truth 
 of Christianity entirely, who makes the strait and narrow 
 path so broad and crooked that the world can go to 
 heaven without going out of its own highway. The 
 politician is most popular who is most accomplished in 
 trickery, most reckless in disregarding the constitution of 
 his country, and most successful in striking sharp bar 
 gains with the lobby agents of moneyed monopolies. 
 And the respect which is paid to the rich man is deter 
 mined not by his integrity and benevolence, but by the 
 number of his thousands or millions, whether they have 
 been accumulated by honest industry and good sense, or 
 by fraud (buying Congress, for instance, to pass some law 
 to give him the monopoly of his business), or directly 
 filching from the poor their hard-earned trash. Do not 
 delude yourselves with the idea that all these changes 
 have been brought about without a cause. Nor must 
 you forget the fact that there are causes sufficient, if rightly 
 used, to change the whole current of events : yea, amply 
 sufficient to undo all that we propose to do, and to damn 
 us besides. It is our profession, gentlemen, which has 
 prepared the people for the present condition of things. 
 The politician complains of not being paid for his ser 
 vices in this matter, and arrogates to himself the credit of 
 having done it all. But the truth is we have done more 
 than the politician and get worse pay. We have put the 
 people to sleep, we have administered to them the fatal 
 opiates of infidelity. Indeed, I never preach to them 
 without being reminded of that graphic description of 
 one of the prophets, They have eyes, but they see not; 
 ears, but they hear not. For instance, this mule-breeding 
 business of ours is a deliberate purpose and plan to degrade 
 their offspring and fit them for perpetual servitude. The 
 thing is so palpable t ; >at if they were not blind they would 
 
THE FIZST WITNESS. 39 
 
 see it, if they were not deaf they would hear it. Suppose 
 their eyes were opened for a moment, their ears un 
 stopped, and they should see and hear these things as 
 they are. Gentlemen, it would be better for us if we had 
 a millstone around our necks, and were cast into the 
 middle of the sea." 
 
 "Mr. Preacher," said the politician, "I think you are 
 arrogating to yourself claims which do not belong to you. 
 It was the dogma of equality and universal suffrage 
 taught by us which has brought about the present con 
 dition of things. 
 
 "My dear sir," answered the priest, "the dogma of 
 equality you claim was held and taught by the fathers 
 of the country, the men who created and organized our 
 government. Now, if what you say is true, why did not 
 the present condition of things exist then ? Why would 
 not the same cause produce the same effect then as now ? 
 Why did not the founders of the government provide, in 
 its organization, for everybody to vote ? Why did they 
 not liberate their slaves, and let them vote ? Gentlemen," 
 continued the priest, " you seem to be under a misappre 
 hension in regard to the whole matter. I think it will be 
 better, before we go any further, to set the thing right. 
 To my mind there are difficulties in our way, which you 
 don t seem to see at all. The truth is this, the whole 
 doctrine of equality is a humbug. The men who framed 
 this government didn t believe a word of it. This is 
 clear, first, from a history of their actions ; they never 
 attempted to carry it into the practical operations of their 
 government, either State or national. Secondly, from 
 the very nature of the case it was impossible ; the causes 
 which lead to the principal emigration to this country 
 grew out of that great revolution in the affairs of Europe 
 commonly called the Reformation. Almost every state 
 of Europe become a battle-field in the war between the 
 Catholic Church and the Reformers. This was the 
 greatest awakening of the human mind the world had 
 ever seen. The art of printing had been discovered. 
 The Bible had been translated into the vulgar tongues of 
 the different nations of Europe. When the people com 
 pared its truth, i*s purity, and its justice with the errors, 
 
40 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 the licentiousness, and tlie tyranny of -the church, they 
 abandoned the church by thousands. So wonderful was 
 the revolution it brought about that in an incredibly short 
 space of time the Reformers had built up great parties in 
 all the kingdoms of Europe. Indeed, every state was 
 divided. In one state the church party held the power, 
 and in another the Protestant party. The party which 
 held the power in any one state would persecute the 
 other party : they would impose civil and political disa 
 bilities ; indeed, this was the mildest form of persecution. 
 The block, the rack, the wheel, the dungeon, and in short 
 every species of torture, was resorted to, to destroy 
 heresy on the one hand, and to break down popery on 
 the other. Catholic France, for instance, persecuted the 
 Protestants; Protestant England, on the other hand, 
 persecuted the Catholics. Men living in a country where 
 their religion was not the prevailing religion, found it 
 necessary to do one of three things: to recant publicly 
 and abandon their religion, to hide their faith, or else to 
 endure the pains and penalties of the laws enacted against 
 them. Men who had faith in their religion, and the 
 moral heroism to maintain their faith at every cost, deter 
 mined to risk the Indian scalping-knife and the wild beasts 
 of the American forests rather than to yield the truth. 
 
 " Such were the men, men conscientiously and heroically 
 Christians, who settled this country and founded our 
 government. These men, with the light of the Bible to 
 guide them, could no more believe that all men are equal 
 than you and I, with the light of the sun to guide us, 
 could believe that all men are of the same color. The 
 Bible from beginning to end, both the Old and New Testa 
 ments, recognizes at all times, at all places, under all cir 
 cumstances, the inequality of man. It speaks of princes 
 and people, the noble and ignoble, the wise and the 
 simple, the great and the small, the rich and the poor. 
 All the different persons we find there have different 
 talents. Christ himself tells us that God has given to 
 one man five talents, to another three, and to another one ; 
 We tintf 1 the one has a talent to preach, one to prophesy, 
 one to exhort, one to rule, and so on. More than this, 
 men who made the Bible the rule of their faith, and the 
 
THE FIRST Wl TNESS. 4 \ 
 
 guide of their life, had always their wits about thorn ; 
 they reasoned soundly, rationally, and wisely. Now, 
 reasoning from the analogies of nature, the law of ine 
 quality is the order of the universe. Beginning with the 
 great First Cause, God, the creator and author of all 
 things, we have the archangels, the angels, and man 
 man in highest intellectual endowments, and man coming 
 down step by step, until he gets so low that you can 
 scarcely tell him from the animal. So you can trace the 
 animal down, from the horse and dog and these are so 
 intelligent that man can almost talk with them to the 
 sponge, which so nearly resembles the vegetable that it is 
 hardly distinguishable from it. So you can follow the 
 gradations of life in the vegetable world, from the rose, 
 whose beauty and fragrance speak the language of love 
 so eloquently, to the toadstool and fungous growth on the 
 body of trees, which have so little life that you can hardly 
 tell them from dead matter. No, gentlemen, equality was 
 born at other times, and under other circumstances. 
 
 "While Luther and hiscolaborers in the great work of 
 reform used the simple sword of truth, the word of God, 
 they were irresistible. They went conquering and to 
 conquer. They overran Germany, England, France, 
 Switzerland, and indeed nearly all Europe. But when 
 they forgot that the great end and aim of Christianity, 
 its alpha and omega, its beginning and its end, its pro 
 phecies and its preaching, its laws and its ordinances, its 
 doctrines and its ceremonies, is, as was beautifully set 
 forth by its divine head, to love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself, the Reforma 
 tion stopped. Yes, as soon as they forgot this truth and 
 sat down to quarrel with each other about their foolish 
 theologies, their silly doctrines and stupid creeds, the 
 Reformation not only stopped but commenced going 
 backwards. When the Reformers commenced building 
 ecclesiastical courts, and making ecclesiastical laws, not 
 for the purpose of promoting the glory of God and the 
 good of man, but for the purpose of getting into their own 
 hands power and authority, the Reformation began to go 
 backwards. In the mean time the Catholic Church had 
 reformed many of its abuses ; in her hour of danger she 
 
 4* 
 
42 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 had called lo her aid a new class of men. She got into 
 other and better hands. Her new rulers commissioned 
 Loyola and men like him to undertake her defense. They 
 went forth, with Jesuit and other new orders, like an 
 army of martyrs, fired with a holy zeal to defend the 
 church, and die, if need be, in her defense. This army 
 attacked the Protestants, no longer governed by the spirit 
 which begot the Reformation, but divided and wrangling 
 with each other about their foolish creeds. Thousands 
 of good men honest, conscientious, and benevolent men 
 had espoused the cause of the Reformation because they 
 believed it to be the cause of truth. But when they saw 
 the new churches falling into the same errors and com 
 mitting the same follies as the old church had done, when 
 they saw the Reformers teaching for doctrines the com 
 mandments of men, and laboring to build up for them 
 selves power and authority by means of ecclesiastical 
 courts, they determined to go back to the mother church. 
 Their purpose was pushed on not a little by the fact that 
 the old church, purified in the fires of tribulation, not only 
 exhibited a holier zeal, but was performing more of the 
 practical duties of Christianity. In going back, however, 
 they had to pass over the debatable ground of skepticism. 
 Here, in this land of doubt and infidelity, was born the 
 dogma of equality. 
 
 " Whether it was because France contained a larger 
 proportion of men of this class than other countries, or 
 whether it was because her people had been more cursed 
 by the church, and oppressed with a more intolerable 
 despotism than any other people of Europe, it will not be 
 necessary for us to inquire ; it will be sufficient for our 
 purpose to know that France adopted this new philosophy, 
 and made it at once her politics and her religion. The 
 history of her long struggle to build up a system of re 
 ligion and government upon this infidel idea, together 
 with its utter and terrible failure, are too well known to 
 be described here. Every one who has read history at 
 all remembers vividly the dark deeds of that reign of 
 terror; how that the streets of her cities ran red with 
 blood ; how that Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, took 
 possession of the river Seine, and refused to be propitiated 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 43 
 
 until hundreds of innocent little children were offered as 
 sacrifices to its dark waters ; how that a strumpet was 
 placed upon the throne, and the people commanded to 
 worship her as the goddess o f reason : while the Chris 
 tian world looked with horror upon this terrible tragedy, 
 it could but look with contempt upon the pitiable and 
 disgusting farce which wound it up. How truly pitiable 
 it was to see a people confessedly great, a people phys 
 ically, morally, and intellectually equal to any nation 
 on earth, weakened, worn out, and exhausted by this 
 ague-fit of infidelity ! to see them conscious of their own 
 wretchedness, begging their old taskmasters, the nobility, 
 and the priesthood, to come back and save them from the 
 madness of their own crimes and follies ! Surely, gentle 
 men, this sight was not calculated to recommend a sys 
 tem of philosophy to such men as the Washingtons, 
 Henrys, Adamses, Franklins, and Hamiltons of America. 
 The truth is, France had at the beginning of that revo 
 lution a great soldier and statesman, trained under 
 Washington and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of 
 American liberty, the Marquis de Lafayette. But for 
 trying to stay the fanatical run-mad proceedings of her 
 National Assembly, and for daring to recommend a 
 policy rational, wise, and consistent, Lafayette had to 
 fly from his country." 
 
 " Mr. Priest," interrupted the bondautocrat, "I don t 
 see the use of all this history. What has it to do with the 
 case in hand ?" 
 
 "The fact I ve been trying to show you is this: that 
 the condition of affairs now existing in this country is 
 wholly unnatural ; that it has been brought about by a 
 certain definite cause, and that cause is infidelity. I re 
 peat it, such monstrous falsehood could never have been 
 imposed upon the human mind unless it had first been 
 lulled to sleep with the opiates of infidelity. Why, sir, 
 any man who is not asleep can tell just by looking 
 around him that there are plenty of men not equal to 
 him, and plenty of others to whom he is not equal either 
 physically, intellectually, morally, or socially. He would 
 know, too, that the simple fact of voting don t make him 
 equal to iren who are his superiors, rior make those men 
 
44 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 equal to him who are his inferiors. He would know that 
 by a little practice his horses and dogs could be taught to 
 vote, and if voting produces equality his horses and dogs 
 would be equal to him and equal to other men. The 
 common people would know that they haven t got as 
 much learning as I have, nor as much talent as my 
 friend the politician, nor the luxurious refinements and 
 elegancies of life which your wealth enables you to have. 
 In what, then, does this equality consist? In voting a 
 mere name. They come to the polls, and vote, and then 
 go back to their drudgery and toil, which other people 
 get the benefit of, just like other slaves. It does seem to 
 me that these people, although both blind and deaf, ought 
 to feel that suffrage is only a bauble for them to play with, 
 while other people reap the fruits of their labor." 
 
 " What is the use," interrupted the bondautocrat, with 
 impatience, " of this labored effort to prove what nobody 
 doubts? I reached the conclusion by a shorter cut long 
 ago, that these people wont make mules by crossing them 
 with asses, for they are asses themselves." 
 
 "Suppose," retorted the priest, a little nettled, "that 
 some Patrick Henry, gifted with inspiration, should 
 preach to these people and wake them up. Suppose they 
 should demand of my friend the politician the Union he 
 promised them the war would save and not destroy, as it 
 Las done. Suppose they should demand of me the free 
 dom which I promised from the pulpit the war would 
 bring, when in fact it has brought on them the despotism 
 of an oppressive and intolerable taxation. Suppose they 
 should demand of you the equality which you promised 
 the war would bring, when in fact it has built up a 
 moneyed aristocracy, tenfold greater than any which 
 existed in the country before. Suppose this requisition 
 should come to us, not as a petition, but as the demand 
 of a right, a right which they as American citizens 
 inherited from their fathers, a right which no power on 
 earth has authority to take from them, what, sir, would 
 become of vour conclusions? what, sir, would become of 
 us?" 
 
 " Mr. Priest," said the politician, "this is a view of the 
 matter which had never occurred to me ; and it strikes 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 45 
 
 me very forcibly as being true. If it is true, this is a 
 more perilous undertaking- than I supposed, and the risk 
 is more than I feel willing to undertake." 
 
 "What, Mr. Politician!" said the boudautocrat, "you 
 getting scared too?" 
 
 "I am willing," said the politician, "to do anything 
 which will pay, except to go to the devil. If these 
 people are as terrible as the priest would have us believe, 
 I am afraid that is where we will go to before we get 
 through." 
 
 " Gentlemen," answered the bondautocrat, " I don t 
 know that there is such a thing as going to the devil, or 
 such a place to go to ; but I do know there is such a place 
 as Wall Street ; and such things as gold, greenbacks, and 
 bonds; I know, too, that all these things are for hire at 
 paying rates, and ready always for a speculation which 
 promises to pay." 
 
 " This thing will pay beyond a doubt," answered the 
 priest, "if we can only carry it through. It will make 
 secure, Mr. Bondautocrat, what has already been gained. 
 Besides this, it will lead into your coffers a stream of 
 replenishment constant and unfailing. Once succeed in 
 crossing the poor white trash with the negro, and you 
 will have a mongrel race of slaves, without spirit or 
 courage ; a race whose docility and tameness will enable 
 you to keep them in servitude forever. Now, what better 
 basis could you have to build an aristocracy on than a 
 class of laborers, who will be made (it by natural laws 
 for servitude ? . You have no idea, sir, how the infusion 
 of a little negro blood will tame that wild, fierce torrent 
 which rushes through the veins of the Caucasian. 
 Besides this, it will thicken up the skin, and make him 
 less sensitive to the yoke of slavery : they will not gall 
 so quick. But, gentlemen," continued the priest, " we 
 must not lose sight of the fact that this business is risky, 
 and that it will require all the wisdom and power we 
 possess to carry it through. In the first place, we must 
 keep the people constantly asleep with the opiates of in 
 fidelity. As this is more especially my part of the busi 
 ness, I will see to it that it is not neglected. The most 
 sure M Hy to do this is to keep them amused by some 
 
4G TUB GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 new toy. Just now we have hanging-, like a plaything 
 around their necks, woman s rights. This bauble will do 
 for some time yet. By the time it gets old and wears 
 out, as temperance, prohibitory laws, mesmerism, spirit 
 ualism, etc., have done, we will have something new. In 
 the mean time, Mr. Politician, do you do all in your power 
 to centralize the government, enlarge its powers, increase 
 the military departments, and keep everything in the 
 hands of our party." 
 
 "Everything is working to our hand," answered the 
 politician. " If our reconstruction policy is carried 
 through, and it will be beyond a doubt, my part of the 
 business will be done." 
 
 "Why did you not keep up the military government 
 in the South ?" asked the bondautocrat. " That, it seems 
 to me, would have been the very policy to enlarge the 
 army." 
 
 "My dear sir," answered the politician, "our system 
 will answer the purpose much better than a direct mili 
 tary government. It will take twice as large an army 
 to keep those negro governments straight as it would 
 require to carry on a single military government. 
 Under military rule the better class of citizens in those 
 States would control the government. For I care not 
 whom we might send there as military governors, they 
 would recognize at once the vast superiority of the dis 
 franchised party over the party to whom we have in 
 trusted the governments as reconstructed. The black 
 and white negroes," said the politician, smiling, ".who 
 have the management of things down there, are wholly 
 incompetent to carry on any government." 
 
 "The negroes and poor white trash, 1 I guess," said 
 the bondautocrat. 
 
 "If you had left the word poor out you would have 
 hit it exactly," said the politician, " the negro and white 
 trash To give the devil his dues," continued the poli 
 tician, " no class of their people entered upon the war 
 with more zeal, and maintained their cause with greater 
 iidelity, than the laboring people of the South. Indeed, 
 sir had their wealthy citizens exhibited the same spirit 
 </ ^elf-sacrificing devotion, we never could have whipped 
 
TUB FIRST WITNESS. 47 
 
 them. The rich men of the South went into the war, 
 those of the cotton States more especially, for the pur 
 pose of creating a new government, which they supposed 
 would add greatly to their wealth and importance. But 
 the masses of the people went into it because it was an 
 invasion of their homes. They looked upon it as a tyran 
 nical usurpation of power by the federal government, for 
 the purpose of trampling underfoot their long-cherished 
 doctrine of State rights. Indeed, they looked upon the 
 whole thing as a violation of the constitutional compact 
 between the States, a total subversion of our system of 
 government, and an outrage upon the genius of Amer 
 ican liberty. The democratic party of the North not only 
 entertained the same political notions, but they actually 
 urged the South into the war. When, however, the 
 South got into the difficulty, they not only deserted her, 
 but actually helped to destroy her, an instance of 
 treachery, meanness, and cowardice such as the world 
 never saw before. The rebels I hate most heartily ; but 
 the party who were their friends until they got into 
 trouble, and then turned round and helped destroy them, 
 and the political principles which they held in common 
 with them, I despise. I think, sir, we deserve a good 
 deal of credit for the way in which we managed that 
 thing. In the first place, we bought up the old party 
 leaders with office and gold, until we got the rank and 
 file into line, and then we kicked them out. The South 
 to-day is divided into two parties. The one party con 
 sists of the brave and honorable men who, whether rich 
 or poor, were ready to sacrifice their lives and property 
 in defense of what they believed to be the right ; my 
 enemies as they are, I cannot but admire the genius, the 
 constancy, and the heroism they exhibited in their des 
 perate defense of a bad cause. The other party is made 
 up of the odds and ends, the rag-tag and bob-tails, the 
 negroes and white trash indeed; poor white men who 
 were cowards, and afraid to go into the army, or deserted 
 it after they were in ; rich white men who thought the 
 North was the strong side, and that they had better stay on 
 that side to save their property; men who never had any 
 country but their own farms; never worshiped any God 
 
, 4$ THE GREAT TIUAL. 
 
 but mammon, and never told the truth when it was more 
 profitable to tell a lie : lastly, mean white men, who 
 fought against us until they saw that we were the strong 
 party, and then suddenly changing sides, they sought to 
 make amends for their crimes and conciliate us by violent 
 and excessive persecution of their own people. To this 
 jumble of ignorance, cowardice, and meanness we have 
 intrusted the government, of these States. The devil 
 himself could not have devised a better excuse for making 
 trouble there and creating a necessity for a large standing 
 army. Another advantage, sir, which our plan has over 
 that of military governments is this: it will not be so 
 objectionable to the people. Jbi om the very infancy of 
 our government the people have been taught to look with 
 suspicion upon standing armies. Nothing was. so abhor 
 rent to the minds of the fathers of our country. They 
 regarded a standing army as the sum of all evils. So very 
 unpopular with the people has this thing always been, 
 that with all the party changes which this country has 
 witnessed since its organization, no party has ever been 
 rash enough to advocate a standing army. At this time 
 a large number of our voters are emigrants from the 
 states of Europe, and large military establishments are 
 still more unpopular with them than with native citizens ; 
 they had standing armies at home, and they know what 
 they mean." 
 
 " Did I not understand you to say," asked the bond- 
 autocrat, " that your plan will require larger armies than 
 the other?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, twice as large; but the difference will be 
 this. In the first plan the army is used directly to govern, 
 in the other it is used indirectly. In other words, under 
 military rule the army would govern the people ; under 
 our reconstruction policy the army will govern the gov 
 ernments of the people. The people, sir, believe in self- 
 government; nor would they permit an army to be kept 
 in the South to rule the people there. But when we tell 
 them that we are keeping an army there to support and 
 uphold the cause of freedom and universal suffrage, it 
 makes it all right. Had Napoleon Buonaparte told the 
 . French people that he wanted large armies to make him- 
 
Til E FIRST WITNESS. 49 
 
 self master of his people, and their king, they would have 
 chopped his head off; but when he told them lie wanted 
 the army to protect the liberty and glory of France, they 
 applauded him. After he got the power in his hands the 
 people found out what he was doing ; but then it was too 
 late. Wo must keep the people in ignorance until we get 
 our power established. Still another advantage our plan 
 1ms : if we may use military power to govern a Southern 
 State when it is refractory, why may we not use it upon 
 a Northern State too ? Some of the Northern States may 
 object to the rule after awhile, but their m*uths will be 
 estopped from complaining if we use the military; for 
 surely if they sanction its use against other States, they 
 will have no just grounds of complaint if it should be 
 used against them. Don t you see the point of my argu 
 ment, Mr. Bondautocrat?" 
 
 "Aii, my dear sir," replied the bondautocrat. "these 
 are the points I like; and then I admire your way of 
 going right straight to them. Our friend the priest 
 always has to give us first a great long preamble of his 
 tory and philosophy, and every few steps he sees the 
 hand write on the wall at Pharaoh s feast, and stops to 
 put up a tinger-board with danger writ on it. Indeed, I 
 don t believe he has quite gotten over the first scare I gave 
 him when I incidentally alluded fro that old Jew Bel- 
 shazzar was it not? that the lions eat up." 
 
 "My dear sir," said the priest, a little nettled at the 
 ignorance of his master, " I fear my history will fare worse 
 in your hands than Daniel did in the paws of the lion." 
 
 " I confess I never studied your history and philos 
 ophy," said the bondautocrat ; " nor do I regret it, for I 
 have made other studies pay me better than these fool 
 eries have paid you. Men are my books, and I have 
 studied them to some purpose. I ve made it pay, sir: 
 millions. Don t you think I ve made better use of my 
 books than you have of yours?" 
 
 "Yes," answered the priest, a good deal nettled, 
 "you ve used the politician to betray his country and 
 sell its liberties, and the priest to betray his God, and 
 sell his soul to the devil, in order to filch from the people 
 their hard-earned trash, that your coffers might be filled." 
 o 5 
 
50 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 " Ha ! ha !" laughed the bondautocrat. " I liave been 
 a more prudent man than you, and invested my funds to 
 better advantage, that s all. When my salary was one 
 thousand dollars, I saved five hundred ; and when it got 
 to be five thousand, I saved twenty-five hundred, half, 
 yes, always half. As soon as I got able I started a 
 factory. It was a good business, paying me about five 
 thousand a year. Hands were cheap, and provisions 
 low ; a*t least I bought for them the cheap kind. This 
 was about ten per cent, on the capital invested. In the 
 mean time I met with a lobby member of your body, Mr. 
 Politician, and he proposed for ten thousand to get a bill 
 put through to protect my business. I at first objected, 
 for it looked like risking too much upon an uncertainty. 
 When he assured me, however, that it would make my 
 business pay fifty per cent., and that there was no risk 
 in the matter at all, I closed the bargain at once. After 
 he got my money he told me that I had better have 
 another ten thousand ready, for it might require that 
 much more. He said he could not tell the exact amount 
 it would take, but he knew there was a sum which would 
 do the business beyond a peradventure. It did take the 
 other ten thousand. This was several years ago, when 
 the business was comparatively new and things didn t 
 work so smoothly as they do now. They were afraid of 
 the people then, and had to work very cautiously. Indeed, 
 there were plenty of men in your body then, Mr. Politi- 
 ci;m, called patriots, who were on the lookout for these 
 things. For if they could find them out and report them 
 to the people, it would make them extremely popular. I 
 suppose Mr. Priest would tell us that the people were not- 
 asleep then, as they are now. Really, some change does 
 .seem to have come over the spirit of their dream. ]S T ot 
 lng ago, Mr. Politician, I heard a member of your body, 
 while giving an account of his stewardship to his con 
 st ituonts, allude boastiugly to one of these transactions by 
 which he himself had made a good round sum; and his 
 people applauded him and sent him back for another 
 term. By the way, Mr. Politician, what has become of 
 those men in your profession whom they used to call 
 patriots ? Th/* old set I know are all dead and gone ; but 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 51 
 
 I suppose they were not all bachelors. Some of them 
 must have left children behind, and what has become of 
 them? These times we never see them nor hear them 
 spoken of at all." 
 
 "You seem, sir," answered the politician, "to have 
 been so much absorbed with your business as to lose 
 sight of the many changes of this progressive age. This, 
 however, has been rather a change in name than in fact. 
 Patriotism was only another name, sir, for loyalty. Both 
 words mean fidelity to your government; patriotism and 
 loyalty are synonymous terms : either may be used for the 
 other. My friend here, the priest, who is a more profound 
 scholar than I am, will correct me if I am wrong." 
 
 " To some extent you are right," said the priest, 
 smiling. " For our purpose your definition is not only 
 correct, but most admirably expressed, a pretty thing to 
 show to the eyes of the blind, and a musical thing to 
 tickle the ears of the deaf" 
 
 "I don t understand you," said the politician, a little 
 out of humor. 
 
 Well, gentlemen," answered the priest, "to make a 
 sharp point, and to go rig-tit straight to it, George Wash 
 ington was a patriot and Benedict Arnold was a loyalist; 
 Marion and Sumter were patriots, while the tories of 
 the Carolinas and their Indian allies were loyalists." 
 
 "I claim to be a loyalist," said the politician, with 
 warmth, " and you don t mean to class me with Arnold 
 and the tories of the Carolinas, do you ?" 
 
 " I do not propose to class you at all," said the priest. 
 "I was simply stating facts. Loyalty means fidelity to 
 a refgning power, to an existing government. Patriotism 
 means fidelity to your country and to the people of that 
 country. In Europe loyalty means fidelity to the king, 
 whether he be a father to his people or a tyrant and task 
 master. In America loyalty means fidelity to a particular 
 party in power, whether it is trying to promote the good 
 of the country and the happiness of the people, or to hold 
 possession of the government for selfish and ambitious 
 ends. Do you believe that, in imposing on the Southern 
 people the infamous government you have just described, 
 you had a pro^r regard for their rights and happiness. 
 
52 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 or for the welfare of the whole country ? Would you 
 pretend to say that we, who are trying to make a mongrel 
 race out of the common people of this country, in order 
 that they and their children may he slaves forever, are 
 acting with a just regard for their rights and happiness ? 
 Gentlemen, it is well for us that patriotism is forgotten. 
 Tis well for us that the word has become obsolete ; it 
 will be well for us to let it sleep with the people. I look 
 upon it as a dangerous word, especially in the hands of 
 those who have forgotten its meaning." 
 
 " Another finger-board !" said the bondautocrat, smiling. 
 
 " I am afraid," said the priest, " that you and the 
 politician will get off the road before we get to the end 
 of our journey, despite all my finger-boards." 
 
 "Mr. Priest," said the politician, "this is pretty plain 
 talk of you, to say the least." 
 
 " I am sorry," answered the priest, "that it is neces 
 sary for me to talk so plain, for there are some things 
 better understood than said. And yet they had better 
 be spoken out plainly than not to be known. If we go 
 into this business with our eyes shut we will certainly be 
 swamped, be hanged, I might say ; for if the people find 
 out what we are up to, hanging will be considered too 
 good for us." 
 
 "I cannot but think," said the bondautocrat, "that the 
 priest attaches more importance to this matter than it 
 deserves." 
 
 " That is my opinion, too," said the politician. " Look, 
 for instance, at the governments of Europe ; every one 
 of them is an aristocracy. Indeed, it seems to be a thing 
 not hard to do, but something which conies of itself. It- 
 seems to follow as a matter of course from the very 
 nature of the case. To tell the truth," continued tho 
 politician, " this thing of democracy is all humbug ; it 
 never has succeeded, and never will." 
 
 " I agree with you exactly," said the bondautocrat. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the priest, " the practicability of 
 democracy is a question which we need not discuss. 
 It has been heretofore the government of this country, 
 and the people believe in it. Nor will they give it up 
 without a desperate struggle, unless they can be cheated 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 53 
 
 out of it. The case of European governments is not analo 
 gous ; and even if it was, it would not bear the inference 
 you propose to draw from it. We propose to do in a short 
 time what it took the governments of Europe generations 
 and ages to accomplish. Nor indeed did they succeed ex 
 cept by indirect means. Kings would make war upon neigh 
 boring states, and this would be a pretext for raising largo 
 armies. When the war was over the danger of another war 
 would be a good excuse for keeping up the army. In time 
 of peace prepare for war served the purpose of kings to gull 
 the people, just as the cry of freedom and equality have 
 served our purpose. After they succeeded in getting up 
 large armies, and weaning those armies from the people 
 by long separation, they could afford to disregard the 
 people. The armies soon became attached to the kings, 
 for they were the masters who fed and clothed them, led 
 and drove them. More than that, these things were 
 done when the European world were just emerging from 
 barbarism. The wonderful facilities for giving informa 
 tion to the people, and enlightening them in regard to 
 matters affecting their rights and happiness, did not exist 
 then as they do now. Nor did every man then have a 
 Bible in his house, that mortal enemy of oppression and 
 tyranny. Aside from all these things, it is historically 
 true that no state of Europe surrendered its liberties 
 without more than one desperate struggle to prevent it. 
 We had better look this thing straight in the face, and 
 prepare to meet its many dangers, and not try to per 
 suade ourselves that it is a thing easy to be done. In 
 deed, my friend here, the politician, and myself, can afford 
 to work hard to accomplish it ; and you, Mr. Bondauto- 
 crat, can afford to pay well. Jt will secure to us and our 
 children those peculiar and special privileges which the 
 aristocracy, the politicians, and the priesthood enjoy 
 under the governments of Europe. Much has already 
 been done. A mighty revolution has been wrought in 
 American politics. The whole plan and policy of on 
 government has been changed. The spirit which ori<r 
 nated it and organized it is dead, yes, to all intents an 
 purposes, dead, for it can neither see nor hear, so nearly 
 gentlemen, -loes sleep resemble death. We have put th. 
 
 5* 
 
54 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 patient to sleep, and all that is necessary now is to keep 
 on hand a plentiful supply of the opiates of infidelity. 
 While the patient is asleep, do you make haste, Mr. Poli- 
 cian, to perform your operation, and do it well. Open a 
 vein and infuse a little negro blood ; and when the 
 patient wakes up he will be as tame and spiritless as we 
 would have him to be. What an admirable mudsill for a 
 wealthy aristocracy ! No aristocracy of Europe has a serf 
 dom as subservient as ours will be, nor half as safe. Their 
 serfs have in their veins the pure Caucasian blood, and in 
 their heads the quick, fervid, flashing brain of the Cau 
 casian. Every now and then the exaction of tyranny heats 
 that blood to the boiling-point, and the friction of galling 
 oppression sets that brain on fire ; and then loyalty and 
 royalty, kings and their thrones, aristocracies with the 
 gold, the pomp, and splendor which they have manufac 
 tured out of the sweat and tears of the people, are wasted 
 in the consuming flames of that fire. Our mulattoes, 
 quadroons, and octoroons will give us no trouble. This 
 will be the beauty of our aristocracy ; it will last forever 
 and never be disturbed by revolution." 
 
 " But I have been told," said the bondautocrat, " that 
 mongrel races will run out; and if it be true, what will 
 become of our race of mules ?" 
 
 " That is true," answered the preacher, "a truth de 
 monstrated by science, history, and analogy. But, my 
 dear sir, we can easily get around that difficulty: while 
 it is running out we will keep running it in. In other 
 words, we will keep up fresh infusions of blood from both 
 sides. Ireland and Germany will supply us with fresh 
 horses (poor white trash), and the supply of asses (ne 
 groes) on hand is pretty large. It will last for some time 
 yet. By the time it runs out we will have the matter in 
 our own hands, and can ship fresh supplies from Africa." 
 
 "What!" interrupted the politician, "the ignorant, 
 filthy negro, fresh from barbarism?" 
 
 "And why not?" answered the preacher. "The doc 
 trine which we are teaching the poor white trash is, 
 that a man is rather a better man for being a negro, ft 
 then follows as a matter of course, the better the negro 
 the better the man So the very Lest man would be a 
 
TIIK FIRST WITNESS. 55 
 
 simon pure, fresh from Guinea. These times," said the 
 priest, " the negro is the model man. Now the character 
 istics of the negro are a broad foot, flat nose, and strong- 
 smell. The negro fresh from the sod would be the high 
 est model, for his foot would be broader, his nose flatter, 
 and his smell stronger; and as for the black skin, which 
 seems to be above par just now, why the Guinea nigger 
 would shine with all the brightness of a tropical polish. 
 The easiest thing done in the world, sir! We have 
 already persuaded the people to believe that the negro is 
 a noble race, so noble that although they have been sub 
 jected to the demoralizing and degrading tyranny of a 
 brutal system of slavery for generations they are still 
 equal to the white man. Now if this be true, and whether 
 it is or not they believe it, could they hesitate to believe 
 that a negro fresh from his native sunny home, where he 
 has never been subjected to the debasing influences of 
 slavery, is better than the white man ? This reasoning 
 is so clear that no one can refute it." 
 
 " Ah, my dear sir," said the politician, " the negro has, 
 notwithstanding his slavery, been for a long time under 
 the influence of our enlightened and progressive civiliza 
 tion ; and this has vastly improved his condition physic 
 ally, morally, and intellectually." 
 
 " That." answered the priest, " is the argument of the 
 slave-holder. He claims that he found the negro the 
 most degraded of all barbarians, and that slavery is a 
 system of education admirably suited to his natsre and 
 condition ; that under his pupilage the negro progressed 
 more rapidly towards civilization than any barbarian race 
 ever did under any system of education. Now all of this 
 is true if the negro is, as we have made the people believe, 
 equal to the white man. The different families of the 
 Caucasian race in Europe, who in their native barbarism 
 were infinitely superior to the negro, have been under the 
 influences of that same progressive civilization for over 
 eighteen hundred years; and yet they are not educated 
 up to a fitness for self-government. The very best of these 
 nations have repeatedly made the experiment, and most 
 signally failed. Why, only a few years ago, the people 
 of this counti 3 had such high notions of citizenship under 
 
56 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 our government, its duties and responsibilities, that they 
 believed even the German and Irish emigrants were not 
 fit to be intrusted with it. I repeat it, sir : if slavery, 
 which only a few generations ago found the negro so 
 ignorant, so filthy, and so degraded an animal that he 
 was hardly considered as belonging to the human species, 
 has in this short space of time made him equal to the 
 most virtuous and enlightened of the Caucasian race (for 
 such we claim to be), and made him fit to enjoy the broad 
 freedom and to discharge the grave duties of a citizen of 
 the freest government in the world, then does it follow 
 beyond a cavil that slavery is the most beneficent system 
 of education ever devised by human wisdom. It would 
 follow also that the slave-holder is the greatest benefactor 
 of mankind; so likewise would it follow that the deso 
 lating and destructive war which we have waged against 
 those people is a crime without a precedent in the history 
 of human wrongs " 
 
 " Another cross-road for another finger-board," said the 
 bondautocrat, smiling. 
 
 " The same old cross-road, and the same old finger 
 board," said the priest. "I have come to it from a new 
 direction, to see if you gentlemen would know it." 
 
 " I see on it," said the politician, " the same old sign, 
 Don t wake up the people. " 
 
 "Exactly," said the priest; " a people who believed 
 yesterday that they ought to sacrifice their lives to liber 
 ate a race of slaves from a debauching and degrading 
 servitude, and to-day believe that those same slaves are 
 as good or a little better than they are themselves, must 
 be laboring under some dreadful infatuation, an infatua 
 tion not less powerful than the witchery of infidelity." 
 
 " I believe," said the politician, addressing the bond- 
 autocrat, " that these priests have had us bewitched too. 
 For really this is a view of this whole matter which had 
 never occurred to my mind before." 
 
 "I never trouble my mind," said the bondautocrat, 
 " about your philosophies. My objection to slavery was 
 that it was not a paying institution. Some years ago I 
 visited a sister of mine down South, who had married a 
 slave-holder ; arid I canu to the conclusion, while on 
 
TUB FIRST WITNESS. 57 
 
 that visit, that she and her husband were worse slaves than 
 their negroes. Their negroes were the slowest hands 
 I ever saw, and then their improvidence, and neglect! 
 why, thoy wasted half as much as they made. You have 
 no Idea what a trouble, too, it was to take care of the sick, 
 the old, and decrepit. I laughed, and told them that my 
 slaves up North did me twice as much service, without 
 half the care and expense. I was opposed to it, gentle* 
 men, simply because it wouldn t pay. I strongly suspect 
 that you, Mr. Politician, opposed it for the same reason ; 
 you found it easier to abuse slavery and be a represent 
 ative of the people, with free access to the public crib, 
 than to stay at home and work." 
 
 " You guess well," said the politician, laughing. " An 
 admission I would not like to make outside of this council- 
 chamber ; but as our deliberations are strictly private and 
 confidential, it don t matter. I suppose your outer door 
 is locked," continued the politician, addressing the bond- 
 autocrat. 
 
 " Yes, sir," he answered, "I locked it myself." 
 
 "And I," said the priest, "put in the iron bolt after 
 you left it." 
 
 "And wrote danger over the door," added the bond- 
 autocrat, smiling. 
 
 " Could the people know," said the priest, " the facts 
 which have been disclosed here to-night, it would be a 
 useless precaution to write danger over the door. Aye, 
 your bolts and bars too would be useless, for they would 
 melt in the fire of their anger." 
 
 " I suppose, Mr. Priest," asked the bondautocrat, "that 
 your opposition to slavery sprung from motives of benevo 
 lence ?" 
 
 " Benevolent motives like mine !" said the politician, 
 with an expressive look ; "benevolent feeling for himself 
 and family." ..;. 4o 
 
 " Most as good at guessing as the bondautocrat," said 
 the priest. " Why is it that we are so reluctant to confess 
 some things, even to those who know them as well as 
 ourselves? This is the point, gentlemen, I ve been 
 driving at all this time." 
 
 "Well," said t^.e bondautocrat, with a smile, "1 
 c* 
 
f)8 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 thought you were only driving at it, for I have never yet 
 been able to see anything where you have been putting 
 up all those finger-boards. Straight to it, Mr. Priest, 
 and let us see the bugbear which has frightened you so 
 often, and which you have used so repeatedly to frighten 
 us with." 
 
 "Then, gentlemen," answered the priest, "to be as 
 candid as yourselves, I was opposed to slavery for the 
 same reason that you were. I opposed it because I found 
 that policy would pay better. I advocated abolition for 
 the same reason that I preached temperance, teetotal- 
 ism, know-nothingism, mesmerism, spiritualism, woman s 
 rights, equality, miscegenation, and so on. When these 
 humbugs were first started, I set my face against them, 
 because they were all clearly contrary to reason and 
 Scripture. Not only did my conscience condemn them, 
 but they were abhorrent to my feelings as a man. 
 But when I compared my little old-fashioned church and 
 the little assembly of plain, unpretending people who 
 worshiped there, with the splendid new churches around 
 me, when I looked at their fine organs, fine choirs, and 
 their large rich congregations, I began to cave in. More 
 especially was this the case, when I found out that men, 
 with less than one-third the brains and information which 
 I possessed, were getting three times as big a salary. 
 My family, too, complained. My wife was particularly 
 bitter on my old-fogy notions, as she chose to call them. 
 She complained, too, that whilst the daughters of other 
 ministers were educated at boarding-schools and received 
 into the first circles of society, her daughters had to 
 go to common schools and to associate with common 
 people. I never tried to reason with her, because I never 
 in my life met with a woman who had the remotest idea 
 of what reason is. If their whim is to do wrong, an 
 angel couldn t persuade them out of it. And let it be 
 said to their credit, if their whim is to do right, the devil 
 couldn t beguile them to do wrong. I have often regret 
 ted that Mother Eve didn t take a prejudice to the tree of 
 good and evil knowledge, for if she had we might, have 
 been in a paradise to this day. At length, fretted by my 
 ^overty, my pride, and the ceaseless importunities of my 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 59 
 
 wife, I announced my intention to preach an anti-slavery 
 sermon. I pretended to have examined the subject and 
 found out my error; but henceforth my place would be 
 in the very front rank of reformers. A great many 
 people came out to hear me. Indeed, many admired my 
 talents and learning who did not like my politics. I put 
 my best foot forward, you may be sure, and my effort was 
 applauded to the very echo. Sometimes the people would 
 weep, sometimes they would laugh, and sometimes they 
 would applaud. This latter demonstration seemed to me 
 to be very much out of place. It gave me such a shock 
 that I surely would have broken down, had it not occurred 
 when I was nearly through. Not many of my own con 
 gregation had come out to hear me. The few who did 
 come were so much offended that they got up and left 
 the church. It semed to them to be a horrible desecra 
 tion. The next day a committee waited on me from 
 the church, to remonstrate against my course ; when I 
 refused to heed their kind but earnest remonstrance, they 
 reminded me of my inconsistency. I answered tartly 
 that good men saw their errors and repented of them ; 
 only oad men hold on to them. They then asked me 
 kindly but firmly to resign my charge, that they might 
 get another minister. 1 told them I would do it with 
 pleasure ; I did not want to preach for a people who did 
 not desire to hear me. Gentlemen, excuse me ; I tremble 
 yet to think of that parting scene. An old gray-headed 
 man, who had been a father in the church and a father 
 to me, was the last to shake hands with me. As his pal 
 sied hand grasped mine he looked into my face with that 
 mingled expression of truth, love, and piety which we so 
 often see in the faces of those who are about to start to 
 their long home. Firm in his own integrity, yet weeping 
 out of pity for an erring son, he let fall on my ears words 
 which tingle there still. My son, said he, I will 
 start in a few days to the better land. My sands of life 
 are nearly run out. One thought has cheered me and 
 brightened the gloom of that dark valley through which 
 I must soon pass. It was the thought that our little flock, 
 ever pure and unspotted from the world, would come to 
 me there, together with our loved pastor. .But if you 
 
60 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 continue in your present course, you at least can never 
 come to me. The frail bark you are now in cannot stem 
 Jordan s angry flood ; but swiftly down the dark river of 
 death will it sweep to that ocean whose waves are fire, 
 and whose shores are eternity. This, this will be the 
 last farewell. Had the stars of heaven been mine, and 
 they all of silver, I -would gladly have given them to be 
 able to recall one day of my life. Gladly would I have 
 bid farewell to earth with all its glittering baubles; all, 
 yes all, rather than bid that sainted old man that last 
 farewell. Often now doos that tremulous voice break in 
 upon my reveries, or startle my midnight sleep with those 
 awful words, This, this is the last farewell. " 
 
 The priest here became so deeply agitated that he 
 could not control his feelings any longer. Even the bond- 
 autocrat seemed to be touched with pity, and respected 
 the pause. 
 
 "For a month afterward," continued the priest, after 
 recovering his self-possession, " I was receiving letters 
 of congratulation upon my conversion to the cause of 
 humanity. And then my church had turned me off. 
 How delicious it is to be made a martyr of, especially 
 in a bad cause ! I got directly a half-dozen calls to big 
 churches." 
 
 "Of course," said the politician, "you accepted the 
 one which offered the biggest pay." 
 
 " Not exactly," answered the priest. " For I found 
 out upon inquiry that the pay there had been run up to 
 the high-water mark, and was then rather on the ebb. I 
 accepted the next best offer, because they were not as yet 
 so heavily taxed, and were able to pay a good deal more. 
 They did really in the next year double my salary. At 
 once I set myself to work to please my new people, and 
 whilst engaged in this study, I discovered why people 
 would pay so much more for a preacher who would make 
 abolition, free-love, and woman s rights speeches, than 
 for one who would preach to them the truths of the gos 
 pel. I was not long in finding out the secret. I found 
 this new Christianity was both cheaper and more palat 
 able than the truths of the Bible. Men who had spent 
 the week in financial gambling, commercial chicanery, 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 01 
 
 political trickery, judicial sophistry, or indirectly filching 
 from the poor their hard-earned cash, would come on 
 Sunday and hear a thrilling appeal in behalf of the poor 
 oppressed negro. They would get up a state of good 
 feeling, shed a plentiful supply of tears, give a few dol 
 lars to the church, and subscribe something for the pub 
 lication of some new book written in defense of the 
 cause of humanity, that is, Maine liquor laws, mesmerism, 
 spiritualism, woman s rights, etc. They would then go 
 home fully satisfied that they had done God and man suffi 
 cient service not only to atone for the sins of the past week, 
 but that the excess of charity deposited to their credit would 
 be enough for the next week, should disease or accident 
 hurry them suddenly to their account. At the end of 
 the year it would be easy, out of a net income of several 
 thousands, to give the priest a few hundreds, who had 
 beguiled the long, tedious hours of Sunday with pleasant 
 music and learned discourses, seasoned just to their taste. 
 How cheerfully even could they give a fraction of their 
 abundance to one who had opened the door of heaven 
 wide enough for them to go in with all their sins on their 
 backs ! How very relishable, too, it made the sermon, 
 to season it well with hatred of those who didn t belong 
 to this new sect of Christians! When the prohibitory 
 law was the mania, how I would abuse those who 
 claimed that whisky and wines might be profitably used 
 on some occasions. How I used to abuse, as infidels, 
 those who refused to believe in mesmerism, spiritualism, 
 and all the other isms which have been set up by infi 
 delity to supplant Christianity. But my principal reli 
 gion was to hate and revile the slave-holder. How I 
 would work up their feelings on this subject, until their 
 hearts were filled with the bitterest hatred ! How much 
 more palatable it is for the human heart to hate than to 
 love ! The measure of a man s Christianity was the 
 degree of his hatred. The most devout Christian in my 
 church (for he was the bitterest hater of the slave-holder) 
 worked about a hundred laborers, and he would fleece 
 them to the very butf, Besides hiring them always at 
 reduced wages, he would manage, by furnishing them 
 with provisions and clothing, to get back half of the 
 
 
 
62 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 small wages he had agreed to pay them. 13ut then these 
 poor devils were only poor white trash. 
 
 " Gentlemen, this religion, or rather irreligion, is a 
 good religion for the rich; but then the rich are only a 
 very small proportion of the people. The great majority 
 of the people are the laboring classes, and this religion 
 don t suit them. Suppose somebody would preach to 
 them Christianity, what a waking up there would be! 
 It is a good religion for the common people. One of its 
 marked characteristics, as given by its great Author, is, 
 the poor have the gospel preached to them. Christianity 
 says to the financial, commercial, and every other species 
 of gambler, Thou shalt not steal. It says to the rich, 
 Go and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor. It 
 don t trifle with the laborer by giving him the bauble of 
 suffrage and an imaginary equality, whilst he is toiling 
 for wages which don t furnish the comforts, nay, hardly 
 the necessaries, of life. It says, Thou shalt not muzzle 
 the ox which treads out the grain ; it says the laborer is 
 worthy of his hire. It claims, too, for its great head the 
 Creator, the fruits of the earth, and the cattle upon a 
 thousand hills, not to pamper the few, and gratify their 
 licentious lusts, but to feed and clothe and comfort all. 
 I have no doubt, gentlemen," continued the priest, "the 
 fact has never occurred to you that at the beginning of 
 the war we had a worse system of slavery in the North 
 ern States than that which existed in the South. We 
 bought our slaves, hundreds of thousands of them, at 
 prices ranging from five hundred to two thousand dollars 
 per head ; we bought them at these prices, too, to go to 
 the slaughter-pens of war ; to endure the toils, the pri 
 vations, the clangers, and insults of a soldier s life; to 
 lose their arms and legs ; to lie unburied upon a hundred 
 battle-fields, and to leave their wives widows and their chil 
 dren orphans. I say, to endure all these hardships, and to 
 come to this awful end, we bought them at prices ranging 
 from five hundred to two thousand dollars, to be paid in an 
 uncertain and fluctuating currency, always at a discount. 
 This was the estimate the masters put upon their slaves 
 in this land of freedom and equality. And the estimate 
 was just, for any number of purchases could be made at 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. (J3 
 
 these rates. At the same time, negro slaves were selling 
 in the South at prices ranging from fifteen hundred to 
 three thousand dollars in gold. I mean young, hearty, 
 and able-bodied men, such as we bought for the war. 
 They, too, were bought, not to be subjected to the priva 
 tions and hardships of war, but to do honest labor ; nol 
 to be wounded, maimed, and destroyed, but to raise rice, 
 cotton, sugar, and tobacco, to feed and clothe mankind , 
 the purchaser being bound, after the slave ceased to bo 
 serviceable, either from accident or age, to take care of 
 him till death. What became of our slaves after the 
 war was over ? We, indeed, give them a little land as a 
 bounty; but this is away off in the wilderness. As it is 
 wholly inaccessible to them, for they are too poor to 
 use it, they are compelled to sell it at a mere nominal 
 price to those who stayed at home during the war and 
 made money. These parties buy it, and let it lie, to be 
 a fortune some of these days for their children ; or else a 
 number of them buy up these claims until they get a 
 large body of land, and then they join and buy Congress 
 to make a railroad through it. That s not all ; these 
 poor devils are put to work to pay back the money which 
 was used to buy them with. For this money is a part 
 of the government debt; and who pays that but the 
 laboring classes, the same men who were bought up to 
 do the fighting? The rich don t pay it; for, as oppress 
 ive as the taxes now are, they are getting richer. No, 
 sir, it is the common people on whom all the burdens of 
 debt must eventually fall. But, gentlemen, it seems to 
 me to be useless to discuss this matter any further. You 
 see that we are standing on dangerous ground. You 
 see, too, the necessity of doing our work quickly and 
 thoroughly. We must move heaven and earth to get 
 things in our power before the people wake up. When 
 we get the government in our hands, and this we must do 
 at all hazards, let them wake up ; we can then afford to 
 laugh at them. But, to put the thing beyond the possi 
 bility of danger, we must perfect this mule-breeding 
 business. Let us once get a cross between the negro and 
 1 poor white trash, and our work will be done for ever." 
 " I think," said the bondautocrat, " there is some truth 
 
64 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 in your view of the matter, and some danger, too. At 
 all events, there will be nothing lost hv being on the safe 
 side." 
 
 " I agree with you, "said the politician ; " but I hardly 
 think as much haste and precaution necessary as does 
 my friend the priest." 
 
 " You politicians," answered the preacher, " are a 
 reckless set of men. You not only do things which are 
 foolish and inexpedient, but you do such things when 
 there is no earthly necessity for them. For instance, 
 you have imposed an unlimited stamp-tax on the people, . 
 an extremely bad thing at best, because of its origin. It 
 was one of those wrongs which led our fathers to throw 
 off the authority of the British government and set up 
 for themselves. Now, instead of trying to conceal the 
 obnoxious association of this thing from the people, it 
 would seem that you are trying to remind them of it 
 constantly. For you have on every stamp the face of 
 George Washington, whose memory is dear to the Ameri 
 can people, because he led their fathers successfully in that 
 long and terrible struggle against this same infamous 
 stamp-tax." 
 
 " You mistake," said the politician ; " it is not the same 
 tax, but a very different one. That was taxation without 
 representation." 
 
 " Are not," said the preacher, " the children of Patrick 
 Henry, of the Marions, of the Sumpters, and the children 
 of the Lees, aye, the very descendants of Washington 
 even, are not the children of those noble men who gal 
 lantly flew to the help of our fathers, and made a com 
 mon cause with them, paying this stamp-tax without 
 representation ?" 
 
 " They are rebels, and don t deserve representation," 
 said the politician. 
 
 "I find out," said the preacher, "that they who want 
 to play the tyrant over their fellow-men are never at-a 
 loss for a plea. England had one, and a very good one 
 in her own estimation, when she wanted to impose the 
 stamp-tax on our fathers. England has one, and a good 
 c/ne in her own opinion to-day, for trampling Ireland un 
 do" hur feet. Russia had one for blotting out the exist- 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. G5 
 
 ence of Poland. Austria bad an excuse for destroying 
 the freedom of Hungary. France had an excuse for 
 keeping Italy in chains. Indeed, every despot who has 
 ever scourged the world has had an excuse for it, one, 
 too, which was good in his own estimation. We have 
 an excuse for doing what we are now about, trying to 
 make a race of mules out of the negroes and poor white 
 trash. But do you think the poor white trash if 
 they knew what we were at would consider our excuse 
 a good one ? My dear sir, there is an extreme degree of 
 folly in this thing of putting Washington s face on these 
 stamps, which looks to me like infatuation. If we don t 
 act with more prudence than this, the people will find us 
 out; and then, as I said before, it were better for us if a 
 millstone were hanged about our necks and we were cast 
 into the midst of the sea. This stamp-tax ought to have 
 been avoided anyhow, on account of its obnoxious asso 
 ciations. Why, the rebels will say, and how will you 
 answer them, that if they were never justifiable before in 
 being rebels, they are now ; for you have imposed on 
 them the same wrongs which led our fathers and their 
 fathers to rebel. That rebellion we justify and applaud. 
 They will say they fought us because they believed that 
 we intended to impose those grievous wrongs on them. 
 By imposing those wrongs as soon as we got the power 
 in our hands, and that, too, in the most palpable and 
 unpopular shape, we justify both their suspicions and 
 their conduct." 
 
 " Well," said the politician, " after all, we are only fol 
 lowing the example of your profession. After the war 
 was over, and I saw the South a heap of ruins ; when I 
 saw the mothers at the graves of their sons, like Rachel 
 weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted 
 because they were not, I could not but pity them, as 
 badly as I hated them and as earnestly as I worked 
 against them. About that time I read a long discourse, 
 in which the author took occasion to mock at those 
 wretched mothers and to insult their woe. There was a 
 henrtlessness in this thing which looked to me heathenish. 
 Whose image and superscription do you suppose I found 
 *>n this discourse ? none other than his who died for his 
 
 6* 
 
G6 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 enemies, bis who, when be looked over Jerusalem, that 
 proud and rebellious city, and saw, with tbe eye of 
 prophecy, the woes which were about to overtake it, 
 wept. Yes, be wept for them who were preparing to 
 slay him. How different, too, was bis language : O 
 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, bow often would I have gathered 
 thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her brood 
 under her wings ! And yet this discourse I speak of, 
 so bitter and malevolent, had on it the sign of the cross, 
 
 for it was signed the Rev. , the chief priest of your 
 
 sects ; I say sects, because I don t know whether he 
 belongs to the Pharisees or Sadducees : I suspect the 
 latter, for he certainly don t believe in a hereafter." 
 
 "I know whom you mean," said the preacher; "he 
 repented of that afterward, and recommended a kind and 
 conciliatory policy towards the South." 
 
 "1 know how much he repented, * said the politician. 
 " Such a monster may repent of some unintentional good 
 he has done, but never of evil. That crafty old Machia- 
 velli who runs the machine at Washington, and watches 
 so closely the changes of political sentiment, wanted a 
 good strong weather-cock to see if the heavy gale which 
 had been blowing from the north, and bearing the ship of 
 state along with it, had not subsided enough for them 
 to make headway against it. He duped this creature 
 with false promises, or equivocal ones at least, such as 
 he always makes, to become his weather-cock. When 
 he found the current was too strong to be stemmed, he 
 left the weather-cock to be blown away or to turn with 
 the wind. The world was amused to see this weather 
 cock for such he is and ever has been a mere negative 
 thing, without a spark of moral courage, that vital and 
 inherent life-principle which gives motion to noble bodies, 
 and enables them to move against the times and tides 
 around them. I say that the world was amused to see 
 this weather-cock, so contrary to the nature of the thing, 
 fluttering for a time against the wind. They did not 
 know that it had been electrified by the touch of political 
 power and patronage. It didn t last long, however. A 
 
 heavy gale from his church at put the thing back 
 
 iu its place, and showed to the world that a weather-cock 
 
THE FIRST W1TNFSS. 67 
 
 is only a weather-cock after all. His rich paymasters at 
 
 his fine church in murmured their dissent; and 
 
 the thought of losing ten thousand a year, without the 
 certainty of high political preferment, was too much 
 wind for even a big weather-cock. Most truly has he 
 repented of the little good he proposed to do to the 
 South, and followed those bitter and revengeful inclina 
 tions of his cowardly soul with a new zeal." 
 
 " This mule-breeding business, gentlemen," interrupted 
 the bondautocrat with a smile, " is a big undertaking ; 
 but really I would rather try my hand at that than to 
 attempt to make honest men of you two, if half you say 
 of each other be true. I think," he added, "that it would 
 be easier to make mules out of the negro and poor white 
 trash than to make patriots and Christians of politicians 
 and preachers." 
 
 " As to being a Christian," said the politician, "I 
 never made any pretensions to that. My friend the 
 priest can answer for himself." 
 
 " I suppose," said the priest, " I am just about as good 
 a Christian as you are a patriot." 
 
 " Well, really," answered the politician, " I never claimed 
 to be a patriot any further than patriotism means loyalty." 
 
 "And that," said the preacher, "is just far enough to 
 get the loaves and fishes, and not " 
 
 " And not," put in the politician, " far enough, brother, 
 to honor the miracle that made them." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the bondautocrat, " to talk seems 
 to be the business of both your professions ; to act is the 
 business of mine. Let us determine upon a plan of 
 operations for the future, and go to work." 
 
 " Well," said the preacher, " it is my part of the busi 
 ness to prepare the minds of the people for miscegena 
 tion ; yours, Mr. Politician, to make the thing practical 
 by legislation ; and yours, Mr. Bondautocrat, to pay 
 expenses. Take care, Mr. Politician, to so shape tho 
 policy of the government that we can use force, if per 
 suasion fails ; for this purpose we must get the whole 
 power into our own hands." 
 
 "I was afraid at one time," said the politician, "that 
 our impeachment scheme would fa il. Indeed, many of 
 
,68 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 our party were timid, and hesitated to go into it until 
 the New York democracy came to our aid. When they 
 passed those resolutions at the Cooper Institute and 
 other places, declaring that, notwithstanding the thing 
 was wicked, and unconstitutional, and revolutionary, 
 they would nevertheless submit to it if we did it, there 
 was no further trouble. Had they taken a bold and 
 determined stand against impeachment, we never could 
 have carried the thing through." 
 
 "Ah," said the priest, "Mr. Bondautocrat and myself 
 were watching that thing; we prepared those resolu 
 tions, and put them into the hands of their leaders. The 
 same game, you remember, Mr. Politician, we played at 
 the beginning of the war. There was really no necessity 
 for the war, and if the Democratic party had taken a bold 
 stand against it there really could not have been any 
 war. Indeed, three-fourths of the Southern people were 
 opposed to the war and opposed to disunion. But when 
 we forced on them an invasion of their country they 
 were bound to take sides. There were, in the State of 
 Virginia alone, a majority of sixty thousand opposed 
 both to war and to disunion. By the way, they were 
 those men of high courage and unshaken purpose who, 
 when they did go into the thing, held out to the bitter 
 end. They the Union men of the South held out 
 against us long after the Secessionists had caved in. I 
 repeat, had the Democratic party of the North determined 
 that there should be no war, there never would have 
 been any disunion, for a majority of the Southern States 
 would have refused to go out. In a few years the cotton 
 States would have been tired of shivering outside in the 
 cold, and would have been glad to come back. But, sir, 
 that would have defeated our policy, and destroyed all 
 our plans. We would have had no big debt by which 
 to build up a grand aristocracy ; we would have had no 
 mongrel breed of slaves to build our aristocracy on ; and 
 then we would hav,e had no grand and powerful govern 
 ment like those of Europe nothing, sirs, but a simple 
 economical democracy, in which the aristocracy and 
 priesthood enjoy no special privileges. But we went to 
 wo p k and bought up the Democratic leaders with gold 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 09 
 
 and office together, until we got the rank and file into 
 the army, and then we kicked the leaders out. The same 
 game we will play again. Let them meet at the Cooper 
 Institute, and wherever else they please, and pass their 
 resolutions; we will make the same bargain with the 
 rabble that old Frederick of Prussia did with his poor 
 white trash. My people, said that wise king, may say 
 what they please, so long as they let me do as I please. " 
 
 "I am afraid," said the bondautocrat, "they will beat 
 us in the elections next fall."* 
 
 "And what if they do?" answered the politician; 
 " while we have the power of impeachment they may 
 elect as many Presidents as they please. My dear 
 sir," continued he, " we will manage the business like 
 that eminent statesman, Count Bismarck, is doing it in 
 Prussia to-day : he gives universal suffrage to the people, 
 bids them elect whom they please; and then he tells 
 their representatives what to do. So, when the people 
 send members of Congress here who don t suit us, we 
 will send them back; and when they elect their Presi 
 dent, if he does not suit us we will impeach him. We 
 will make Andy Johnson an example, and his case will 
 serve as a precedent. Universal suffrage ! Yes, we will 
 let them all vote, negroes, women and all, just so long 
 as they will let us hold on to the government and exer 
 cise its powers. The Southern States we have all right, 
 and if it becomes necessary we will pass a law, just be 
 fore the presidential election, allowing the negro to vote 
 in the Northern States. We must wait with that, how 
 ever, until the political excitement gets high, so high 
 that our own party will be willing to accept anything 
 rather than be beaten ; and then, just long enough before 
 hand to get the benefit of this thing, we will pass a law 
 allowing the negroes to vote in all the States. If all the 
 negroes vote, we will be able to outvote them. If the 
 people won t let them vote, as will be the case in some 
 places, we will call that fraud and violence, and reject 
 the election. The fact of the business is, nothing is 
 .van ted but a bold front and determined action to carry 
 
 * This was written in 1808. 
 
70 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 us through. The Northern people who have property 
 will let the government go, yea, every vestige of it, be 
 fore they will resist. Resistance might lead to war ; 
 war would endanger their property, and their property 
 is dearer to them than their democracy, their country, or 
 their liberties. Indeed, men who have property" are 
 right, for under strong governments property is more 
 secure and enjoys always peculiar privileges. A strong 
 government always for the rich : it will in time secure 
 to them the honors and emoluments of aristocracy. We 
 need have no fears of that class of society ; tis only 
 the poor white trash who are likely to give us trouble. 
 The only effectual way of taming them that 1 know of 
 will be to get a little negro blood into their veins." 
 
 "I have thought," said the preacher, that it would 
 help the business along very much for some of our party 
 who have talent and influence to marry their daughters 
 to negroes. It would be unpleasant, tis true, but we 
 must do a great many unpleasant things to accomplish 
 our purpose. It goes a great way with the poor white 
 trash for some of their leaders to set them an example. 
 Suppose one of you gentlemen lead off." 
 
 "My daughters," said the politician, a good deal ex 
 cited, "have been differently educated." 
 
 "Mr. Priest," put in the bondautocrat, with a wily 
 smile, "as this is a moral question, it seems to belong to 
 your profession particularly to set the example." 
 
 " My dear sir," answered the priest, " I am too poor. 
 My salary is large, it is true, but yet it takes it all to 
 keep my family up to the top of society. That society 
 thinks like we do, that this is a very good thing for the 
 poor white trash, but a very bad thing for the first 
 circles. If a negro should come into my family we 
 would have to come down, and I, perhaps, would lose 
 my salary besides. If I was rich like you, it would be 
 a different thing. A man who is rich can do what he 
 pleases, and nobody calls him to account. It would be 
 the very making of my friend the politician ; it would 
 make him popular with the poor white trash, who do 
 the voting, and this would secure for him any office he 
 might desire." 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 71 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the politician, a good deal out of 
 temper, " I am willing, as I said before, to do anything 
 but go to the devil or to send my daughters there; and 
 as marrying my daughters to negroes would amount to 
 about the same thing, it is out of the question to talk 
 about it." 
 
 "I think," said the bondautocrat, "it would look 
 better in the priest than in either of us, and have more 
 weight besides; so if you will go into it, Mr. Priest, 
 I will guarantee the pay." 
 
 "The pay," said the priest, absorbed in thought: "the 
 pay how much, sir?" 
 
 "Why," said the bondautocrat, " dollars for your 
 
 daughter and dollars for yourself." 
 
 "Change the figures a little," said the preacher: " 
 dollars for my daughter and dollars for myself. My 
 daughter, sir, will have to move in a different circle, and 
 won t need so much. A little will make her comfortable 
 in the society in which she will have to move. As a 
 compensation for the loss of one of my daughters, I will 
 spend this money in lifting the others higher up. Indeed, 
 my daughters too are educated against this thing ; but 
 one of them is not so bright as the rest, and her disposi 
 tion, too, is kind and confiding. I think yes, I think 
 I can persuade her to it. My family won t like it, either; 
 but then the idea of being rich, yes, sir, the idea of 
 being rich! I think that will do the work, I think 
 that will do the work," repeated the preacher to himself. 
 "The pay, sir, the pay, when may I expect that?" 
 
 " The half of it I will put in the hands of our friend 
 here to-morrow, and the balance as soon as the matter 
 shall be settled." 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," said the preacher, "as it is late I 
 will bid you good-night. We must meet often to report 
 and consult. Let none of our secrets get out; we must 
 tell nobody outside, of our league, not even our wives. 
 Good-night!" 
 
 "Well, I am poor," said the politician, "and don t 
 profess to be over-conscientious; but before I would 
 marry one of my pretty daughters to a negro, I would 
 turn soUlicr and eat hard-tack. Marry my daughter to 
 
72 THE CHEAT TRIAL. 
 
 a negro! my offspring and theirs degraded forever! 
 Sooner would I follow them to the grave! yea, sooner 
 would I see their beauty blasted by the plague, the leprosy, 
 or any other curse that heaven might send on them !" * 
 
 "I agree with you," said the bondautocrat. "I love 
 money: it has been the object of my life to make it; to 
 make money is my hope for the future; and yet, rather 
 than my daughter, so beautiful and accomplished, should 
 lose her beauty her pretty blushes and her pretty blue 
 eyes in the dark, dead skin of the negro, and his 
 glaring, glassy eyes, I would go from the city to the 
 mountains, and from a palace to a cabin! What man 
 ner of men are these preachers, anyhow? I never ac 
 counted myself a very good man, but surely J never 
 dreamed of a man as bad as that fellow. He has talents ; 
 he has learning. He told me truths here to-night that I 
 never knew before; indeed, he seems to know almost 
 everything, and yet I never met with a man so bad. I 
 never thought much of these priests; really I never 
 thought much about them any way. I took them to bo 
 men of soft hearts and mostly of soft heads. This 
 fellow has any amount of brains, but no heart at all. He 
 must certainlv be an exception, a black sheep in the 
 flock." 
 
 "JSTot by any means," answered the politician. "The 
 good man is the exception in this profession. I have 
 been thrown a good deal with them, and have found 
 them to be, as a class, the most villainous and heartless 
 men in the world. Of late years it has gotten to be 
 very common for these priests to turn politician, and 1 
 have found them, almost without an exception, to be 
 mean and unprincipled men. I think it is the large ac 
 cession to our profession from that class which has made 
 the name politician the synonym of scoundrel. Look at 
 the proceedings of their synods and conferences after the 
 war: they exhibit nothing but a spirit of the most ran 
 corous hate. Could they have had the power they would 
 have gone down South and taken possession of all the 
 fburch property. More than that, sir: 1 verily believe 
 they would have compelled those unfortunate people to 
 attend their preaching of malevolence, hate, and abuse, 
 
Tin: FIRST WITNESS. 73 
 
 or put them to the rack and torture. What is most re 
 markable is that all their ecclesiastical bodies all the 
 Protestant ones, at least (I am a Protestant, and keep 
 posted about their doings) showed the same cruel and 
 ruthless spirit of revenge. I indeed had no love for the 
 rebels, and yet I could not but pity their wretched situ 
 ation after the war. I wanted to destroy their govern 
 ment ; but these priests, from the way they talked and 
 acted, would have destroyed them both soul and body. 
 I am sure that not one of them in a hundred has any 
 idea of the better instincts of humanity, much less of the 
 divine benevolence of the Christian religion. But it is 
 late, and we must part. Good-night, sir ; I wish you 
 pleasant dreams." 
 
 "I think," said the boudautocrat, smiling, "I shall 
 dream to-night of stars and garters, coronets, dukedoms 
 and lordships." 
 
 " You shall realize them all some of these days," re 
 plied the politician, "if our plans are only successful." 
 
 "So good-night, my lord, good-night. 7 
 
BILL OF EIGHTS. 
 
 Resolved 1st. That we believe in the Declaration of 
 Independence not as an idle sentiment, but as a living 
 truth. 
 
 2d. That the early administration of our National 
 and State governments, under the authors of that noble 
 declaration of the rights of man, was the true and only 
 true practical expression of its meaning. 
 
 3d. That such practice inculcated neither the tyranny 
 of a licensed mobocracy nor the insolent rule of a petty 
 moueyed monopoly, but on the contrary that justice to 
 all is the freedom and happiness of all. 
 
 4th. That the inalienable rights of man are the per 
 sonal freedom of each individual man, and an intrans- 
 ferable right to his daily bread the unhindered enjoy 
 ment of the fruits of his. labor. 
 
 5th. That any power, whether it be ecclesiastical or 
 political, which, either through tithes or taxes, takes 
 from the common people the fruits of their labor, the 
 means of their happiness, their peace and good-will to ono 
 another, is in open rebellion against the plain teachings 
 of the Bible, and the political and social rights taught 
 us by the founders of the American Democracy. 
 
 (^fli. That governments in the American sense mean 
 servant.- ami not masters of the people, and that as ser- 
 
DILL OF RIGHTS. 
 
 vants they can exercise only such powers as secure the 
 happiness and prosperity of their masters. 
 
 7th. That the exercise of any and all other powers 
 whatsoever is at war with the sovereign rights of indi 
 vidual freedom, the inalienable rights of man, and all 
 acts done by such usurped power are illegal, unjust, and 
 of no binding authority. 
 
 8th. That the late civil war in the United States was 
 simply a conflict for power between king cotton and king 
 monopoly, neither king having any regard for the weir 
 fare of the people at large. 
 
 9th. That the people are bound by the love of their 
 children that were slain, of their liberties that were 
 destroyed, and by their duty to their God, their country, 
 to bring these tyrants to the bar of public opinion the 
 great tribunal of justice on earth and by repudiating 
 their wicked deeds wash their hands of the wrong against 
 humanity. 
 
 10th. That the present taxes of the people are more 
 than all their net earnings, and this is not American 
 freedom but Egyptian bondage. 
 
 llth. That preachers and politicians who would teach 
 the people to endure this condition of things are neither 
 Christians nor patriots, but the hired agents of mammon ; 
 and that the public press which falters in its duty is no 
 better. 
 
 12th. That with one-hundredth part of the present 
 taxes we could have an honest, faithful, and prosperous 
 administration of public affairs. 
 
 13th. That the people have a right to meet in their 
 respective neighborhoods throughout the United States 
 to choose delegates to represent them in a National 
 
BILL OF RIGHTS. 
 
 Convention ; to create a government for themselves and 
 their children, without any regard to the dead past, save 
 to repudiate its wrongs and throw off its burdens. 
 
 14th. That we invite the people of the United States 
 from Maine to California to meet us in National Conven? 
 tioii, to make a common effort to rescue our country from 
 the grasp of a giant, corporate power, masked under the 
 guise of legal government. 
 
 15th. That such a spectacle would be a living witness 
 (and the first ever given to the world) of the capacity of 
 man for self-government, and a sure guarantee of those 
 inherent and inalienable rights which corporate power, 
 miscalled government, has hitherto usurped to destroy 
 the personal freedom and national happiness of mankind. 
 
 Not porches, theatres, nor stately halls, 
 
 Nor senseless equipage, nor lofty walls, 
 
 Nor towers of wood or stone, nor workman s arts 
 
 Compose a State ; but men with daring hearts 
 
 Who on themselves rely to meet all calls, 
 
 Compose a State ; it needs no other walls. 
 
 HENRY HUTTER, 
 WM. W. HARNESS, SR., 
 G. HUTTER, 
 JACOB HUTTER. 
 
 Newspapers plea.se publish. 
 
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