Read Ebook: The Broken Sword; Or A Pictorial Page in Reconstruction by Worthington D Bullock James Dempsey Illustrator

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ached in his ole haversack, got the flask and put it to his mouth. "Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle; umph," he said, smacking his lips, "dat is sho good truck. Is yu got gumpshun nuff ter count dis munny, specks it oversizes your judgment, ole hoss," and he began to count upon his fingers, "five hundred, hundred fousand, hundred million. Great king! what am I gwine ter do wid dis munny; ef ole Mars Linkun cud see Joshaway now, wid his freedom und de grate house und de plantashun und de hosses, he wud larf und larf frum wun eend of his mouf to the tother. You see's now Mr. Bellyun what yu is dun und dun fur yosef crackin de whup ober de po nigger."

A distance of two miles had been placed between the old negro and the village and he had two more miles to go. One mile ahead ran with a swift current the black waters of Chowattuck, but there was a substantial foot log thrown across it, and it was ordinarily safe. Joshua had gone but a little farther when he wanted to sample "dem dar sperrets agin," "Pen upon it, I nattally feels dat ar truck er oozin outen my toe nails." The "tikler" was turned up again, and gurgle, gurgle, gurgle sang the fiery spirits. The money now had greatly multiplied; the trees upon the roadside were somersaulting, and the road itself, like a serpent, was twisting in and out about his tangled legs. Joshua stopped in sight of the water with the observation.

"Hole on dar ole hoss, what is yu ergwine ter do, dis munny aint ergwine to tote yu ober dis crick; ole glory back yander aint gwine ter heer yu hollow, what is yer gwine to do?"

He put his hands upon his old knees, and rubbed them down, brought his coat sleeves with a fierce swing across his cavernous mouth, fetched a grunt or two, then planted his feet upon the foot-log.

"Studdy yosef ole hoss, studdy yosef, ef yu draps inter dis heer crick und gits drounded, it's ergwine to bust up ebery scalyhorg in der souf."

Three times he tried to walk the log and as often fell off before reaching the water.

"Konsoun de crick," he muttered, "hit hadn't orter be heer no how, er pesterrin fokses er cummin und er gwine; pears lak now de bellion is dun und fell dere is a dratted crick at ebery crook in de rode; blame my hide ef I aint gwine ercross ef I has ter crawl lak a santypede; I kin straddle de dratted fing un I kin git ercross arter a fashun, but what is I gwine ter do wid de happy-sak und de munny? I is bleeged ter use bof hands ter hold on to de dratted log when I slips und slides, und I kaint tote de happy-sak in my mouf, kase I haint got but one ole snag in my hed, and hit is in de furder eend; consound it, whay it hadn't orter be no how. I kin tie de happy-sak to de kote keerts, und den ole hoss, yu und me kin land on de tother side of de crick lak a kildee. Ef I was ergwine tother way dar wud be a passel ob kaarts cummin dis way; dey is allus gwine de rong way at de rong time." So argued Joshua as he fastened the haversack to the only button on the back of his coat.

"Now den ole buttun, ef yu was ter brake loose, un drap yu wud werk bigger strucshun dan a yeth-shake, dat yu wud. Provedense is ergwine to do hits part ef Hanner is dun und dun hern."

Slipping and sliding, the old negro was approaching the other end of the foot log; his heavily weighted coat skirts thumping against his shanks, when he was sliding along under an overhanging cypress bush about midway of the deep channel, "kerchunk" some heavy object dropped into the water.

"Grate Jarryko!" exclaimed the old negro alarmed, "what a tremenjous mockisun snake dat was a drapping off dat dar bush; I'm ergwine ter git erway frum dis crick, sho yo born."

Slipping and sliding he finally got to the end, and with the observation "Peers lak I feels mity lightsum in de hine parts," he put his hand behind him to feel for his haversack, and found it gone.

The loss of the treasure for the moment confused the old negro, then he began to cry and swear, until his grief at last found expression in the exclamation:

"Grate Jarryko! Dem passages o' scriptur erbout fafe und erbout grace und erbout proverdense got twisted und tangled togedder into a loblolly, und bress de Lawd, dis heer happuning is de eend of it all."

He then looked back upon the raging flood, utterly forlorn, and plaintively addressed himself to his situation:

"Now, whot's Hanner gwine ter do erbout dem hosses und de kerrige und de grate house, und dey kivered up in dat sloshy graveyard--drownded to def in de turkle hole? Dat ole button dun und broke loose und drapped in de werry wustest place on de top side o' de yeth. Now Hanner she's ergwine ter say hit wuz de sperrets. Well, den, how did de sperrets git inter de button? Dat's de pint. She mout say ergen dat ef dem sperrets hadn't got mixed up wid de ankle jints dat dis nigger mouter slewed ter disser eend und hilt on ter de munny. Well, den, how cum de drotted crick in de middle o' de rode? Dat's er nudder pint. Dis heer missury dun und cum erbout twixt Hanner und de debbil; dats de how. She er drapped back yander, er singin',

'Hold de fort, fer I'm er coming'

und er spectin' de hosses und de kerrige, und bress de Lawd she dun und flung de fat in de fiar her own sef. How's I ergwine ter hole de fort wid de ammynishun in de dratted crick? I haint ergwine ter put de blame on de sperrits, kase hit hadn't orter go dare. She mout er node dat ole buttun warnt ergwine to tote dat strane, und dat hit wus ergwine ter brake loose und drap fust er las. How wus I er gwine ter git ter dis eend epseps I had fafe in de button? Now she mout say ergin dat I hed orter slewed across fust und den slewed back und fotched de munny. Bress de Lawd, how wuz I ergwine ter know de munny wuz gwine to stay at de tuther eend und I at disser eend? Tell me dat. Twixt de scalyhorgs und dat Mefodis meetin house, dare's ergwine ter cum a slycoon in dis lan' yit."

As Joshua approached his cabin he looked up and saw his old wife sitting in a dilapidated rocking chair, surrounded by the scant furniture, and singing:

"Tis grace hez fotched me safe dis fur. Und grace gwine take me home."

He stopped abruptly and began to groan and mutter.

"Grate Jarryko!" he exclaimed, as he vigorously rubbed one foot against the other, "Ef yu's spectin' dem rones to tote yu in de kerrige to Filadelfy meetin' house, hits ergwine ter be by und twixt mo better grace dan yu's got, ur me udder."

The old negro looked up again over the broken rim of his beaver, and he began to mutter again, "Grate Jarryko! Ef dat fool nigger haint dun und gone und turned de house inside outtards! De debbil hez sho broke loose in de middle ships o' dis ole plantashun, und dem evil sperrets is in cohoot wid won ernudder."

At this point Hannah observed Joshua zigzagging across the field without horses or carriage, and her wrath was exceeding fierce.

"Pend upon it," she exclaimed, "dat ar ole nigger fool de werry eyeballs outen yo hed. Gwine ter fetch de rones und de kerrige! Grate king! Ef de good Lawd spares me twell den, when de jedge cums er roun' ter de kote, I'm ergwine ter git me er vorcement. Mont ez well go inter cohootnership wid a billy gote, widout ary moufful o' fodder ez dat ole black idgeot."

When Joshua came within hailing distance, Hannah halloed to him; "Whay hez yu been all dis nite Joshaway? Here I'se sot und sot ever sense daylite down, in de jam of de chimney und every now und den hit peeerd lak I heerd dem rones er plumputy plump down de rode, er cummin same ez a sho nuff harrykin, und bress Gord heer yu cums ergin wid de drunken reels lak er ole hoss, wid de bline staggers, mommucked up wusser dan a kadnipper; Look at dat ole bever hat, er layin' dare pine plank lak a turkle trap sot bottom uppards."

Joshua heaved one or more sighs as he blurted out in a drowsy way; "Dem dare hosses yu heerd down de rode, er blickerty blick, dun und got drownded to def in de crick last nite."

"Grate king!" exclaimed Hannah wrathfully; "ef de good Lord spares me twell den, when de jedge gits to de kote, I'm gwine to git me a vorcement."

"Und me too;" ejaculated Joshua as he stretched himself upon a plank for a nap.

PATRIOTIC MEN DELIBERATING.

At the hour of 3 p. m., in the early autumn of 186--, several representative gentlemen met by previous agreement in the library of Colonel Seymour. This congress of Southern leaders of the old school, after the interchange of the usual courtesies, resolved themselves into "A Committee of the Whole upon the state of the Union," with Judge Bonham in the chair, and was addressed at length by Governor Ainsworth. This gentleman had honored his state as one of its Senators in the Federal Congress; again as Secretary of the Navy, and had filled by successive elections the office of Governor for three terms. He had reached that mellow age when the intellect becomes largely retrospective. The manner of this distinguished statesman was singularly individual. In early life strongly inclined to the contemplation of perplexing political questions, he possessed a graphic, nervous force--a kind of untamed vigor--a raciness of flavor in speech that belonged only to the individual who thought for himself. There were few men more richly endowed; his intellect was of the highest order--clear, rapid and comprehensive--combined with an extraordinary facility of expressing and illustrating his ideas, both in conversation and debate. He possessed a rich imagination, a rare and delicate taste, a gentle and sportive wit, and an uninterrupted flow of humor, that made him the delight of every circle. Nor were his moral qualities less deserving of respect and admiration. He was generous, brave, patriotic and independent. He was the slave of no ambitious or selfish policy; the hunter of no factitious or delusive popularity; he spoke the language of truth, justice and wisdom. A "throb of gratitude beat in the hearts of the people," and the sentiment of an affectionate respect glowed in their bosoms for the "old man eloquent." His speeches, too, were essentially characteristic, abounding in keen satire, humor, and frequently in the most direct and idiomatic language. Given to intense conviction rather than to subtle discernment, and devoting his unusual ability to studied effort, he could, whenever he felt so inclined, "strip the mask from the hypocrite, and the cowl from the bigot."

This was the man toward whom the patriotic sentiment of the country was directed; the man who might, by possibility, lash the raging Hellespont into submission. "But what avail," said he as he leaned heavily upon his staff, "are arguments and protests? Can we charm the serpent into harmlessness by the feeble chirping of the wren? Can we tranquilize the country by indignant declamation?" Then with an effort he assumed a poise still more dignified and serious, as he continued:

"Gentlemen, when the seas are lashed into a rage, no matter who are the mad spirits of the storm, they cannot say to their tumultuous waters, 'thus far shalt thou go, and no farther, and here shalt thy proud waves be stayed.' There are other powers in motion beneath its surface, which they wist not of, and whose might they can neither direct or control. I have stood upon the shores of the mighty ocean, and observed the forerunners of the coming storm. I have heard the moan of its restless waters in the caverns of the great deep, and have seen the upheaving of the billows, which rose, and raged and tossed as foam from their bosoms, the wild spirits that gendered the tempest. I envy not the triumph of those who have troubled the waters; who have laid waste the South, who have beggared her proud people. I had rather stand with my countrymen powerless, but brave and unyielding, than to wield the thunderbolts of Jove, if I must employ their power and resource in wrong and oppression. When the last spark of Roman liberty was extinguished; when no voice but that of Augustus was heard, and no power but that of Augustus was felt, his venal flatterers vied with each other in deifying their god, and degrading those firm, defiant spirits who stood for their country and its tranquility. Caesar had subjugated the world, all but the dark unbending soul of Cato. In a catastrophe, such as this, let that band of patriots to which it is my pride to belong, share in the spirit of the last of the Romans; that spirit which scorns to bow before any earthly power, save that of their beleaguered country.

Wealth is power, and the wealth of a nation is its labor, its abundant control of all the great agencies of nature employed in production. The products of human labor, its food and clothing, like the fruits of the earth are annual, and God in his wisdom has adjusted human wants to their power of production. Like the bread from heaven the dews of every night produce the crops, and the labors of every day gather the harvest. What, but an almost boundless power of consumption and reproduction has given to the South its athletic vigor, and yet the enfranchisement of the negroes has been a fatal blow to every industrial interest. It has left our plows to rot in the furrow, and our plantations to grow up in briers and brambles.

That liberty, which ranks in our organic law next to life, is subjected to the caprice of those who happen in the ever varying conditions of human affairs to be placed over us as masters. The South believed that the theory of the government derived its chiefest captivation from its regard to the equal rights of all its citizens and from its pledge to maintain and preserve those rights. It assumed to proclaim the happiness of the people to have been the object of its institution, and to guarantee to each and to all without limitation the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property.

It has been reserved for the power of oppression, in its active and diffused state, to give effect to the unhallowed innovation upon the rights of the South.

Reconstruction is the Gethsemane of southern life. God's law is higher than man's law. Man's feeble statutes cannot annul the immutable ordinances of the Almighty. Those whom God has put asunder, let no man join together.

Who could have foreseen that in the first century of our existence African freedmen would rule sovereign commonwealths, and become the judges of the rights and property of a race who had ruled the destinies of the world since governments--patriarchal, monarchical or constitutional--was known to man?

No where can there be found in the history of any country where the civil and military policy have been so basely prostituted, or where the safeguards of liberty, life and property were ever entrusted to freed slaves--human chattels; slaves who never for a moment have been in a state of pupilage. It is an epoch that marks the decadence of the manhood and civilization of a great nation--homogeneous, prosperous, enlightened and happy. The nearest approximation to this era of ruin--of social degradation--was when the slaves in Rome were enfranchised by order of the emperor, and conditions there were totally dissimilar. Whilst they enjoyed certain rights and prerogatives of manumission, they were still held to duties of obedience and gratitude. Whatever were the fruits of their toil and industry, their patrons shared or inherited the third part, or even the whole of their acquisitions. In the decline of this great empire, the proud mistress of the world, we are told that hereditary distinctions were gradually abolished, and the reason or instinct of Justinian completed the simple form of an absolute monarchy. In the eye of the law all Romans were equal and all subjects were citizens. The inestimable character was degraded to an obsolete and empty name. The voice of a Roman could no longer enact laws or create the annual ministers of his power.

"It may take many generations perhaps, for moral changes are slow, to put out all our lights of knowledge that are now beaming from every cottage in the South; but one after another they will be extinguished, and with them the beacon torch of liberty. When the white men of the South shall come to see how things are, and to realize the downward tendency, physical, intellectual manhood will make a throe to regain the height it has lost, and if it fails, a storm will arise from the elements they are compounding, that will break somewhere and spend itself with desolating fury. They cannot degrade a people who have been enlightened and free, prosperous and happy, without igniting a mass which they can no more control, than they can the central fires of Vesuvius.

"Up to the commencement of hostilities between the North and the South, there were in the South millions of people employed directly or indirectly in the honest and wholesome avocation of agriculture, and by its great encouraging system, sustained in a condition of existence, both moral and physical, equally as prosperous and independent as any other agricultural people in any other region of the earth. They were white men who piece by piece built up the whole superstructure, and thereby reinforced the country with so much labor and skill; furnished so much mutual employment for that skill and labor, aided as they were by so many instrumentalities of toil and agents of production. What a country it was--supplied by this system from the labor of our own hands and workshops, with all the machinery, fruits of the earth, and all the needful fabrics of human skill. This great system comprehended every class and every source of material wealth. Under this system our people prospered. The white population of the South came by descent from a parent stock, that from the foundation of society had governed in wisdom and moderation the most enlightened countries of the world; who had written every constitution, fought every battle, endowed every charity, established every government, introduced every reform that has given to the world its christian development and progress.

"It has been remarked 'Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name.' If the gift of the elective franchise enabled the negro to protect himself in his rights of person and property, the denial of it to the white man took away from him that protection and that right. They went even to lower depths, and by the election and registration laws basely surrendered into the hands of the carpet-baggers all power. The judiciary, the last refuge of the unfortunate and oppressed is stricken down and stripped of both ermine and respectability. The ballot box--the sanctuary of freedom--the ballot box--the only secure refuge of liberty--the ballot box, the armory where freedom's weapons are wont to terrify tyrants, is made the charnel house in which the assassinated liberties of a defenceless, prostrated people are buried; is made the dice box in which are staked and played for by the freedmen of the South the revenues of plundered commonwealths. What wonder in this lust for power men should become strangers to the people they govern, outlaws to honesty and patriotism.

"They know no law but that of force, and no God but Mammon. They ply their theft upon every citizen, enthrall him with taxation, deny him the right to be seen or heard or felt at the ballot box or before the court. In the train of these outrages and indignities came a flood of unwholesome oppressive laws, creating new offices, increasing the salaries of incompetent and truculent officials, multiplying the cost and expenditures of government, and correspondingly increasing the burdens of taxation. Then came martial law, militia campaigns, loyal leagues, murders, arsons, burglaries, rapes, and a reign of terror and intimidation to make the way for the easy perpetration of the most monstrous and unparallelled wrongs, frauds and outrages that ever cursed the earth. The South, like a beautiful captive, was turned over to be deflowered and defiled. She could only cry in her desperation--"I am within your brutal power, and gagged and pinioned must submit."

"Our elective judiciary has contributed immeasurably to the vicious, demoralizing spirit of the age." The intelligent and upright judge is the representative of the law in its simplicity, sufficiency and learning. He is the living exponent of its justice. Whatever the law is will appear in him, and whatever it does will be done through him. The different departments of industrial activity center in him. The plowman in the field, the smith at his anvil, the miner in the earth, the operative in the factory, the banker at his desk, are all a vital part of his being. He is the foremost agent of providence in keeping up the natural distinction of race and position. His creed is that men are not to be antagonists, but friends. Differ they must in usages and institutions, in habits and pursuits; but in his opinion they differ, not that they may be separated, but for a truer sympathy and a compacter union. Mountains and seas insulate, language and religion differentiate men, but the law in its economical administration corrects these things into the elements of a genuine brotherhood. The fortunes of the world, so far as they are delegated to human care, are in his hands. The peaceful progress of society is blended with his personal integrity. Commonwealths, corporations and individuals vest their wealth, their reputation, their security in him, and if any one man more than another is under the most sacred of earthly obligations to be an example of the highest integrity, the most exact justice, the noblest virtue of thought, word and action, it is the judge of our courts of record. No feudal baron--no courtly knight--ever had the power that may now be exercised by him.

"Our civilization pledges us to the sway of moral principles; its rule is imperative, because we have assumed the title of men, domesticated our hearts, and accepted the religion of Jesus Christ. Judicial life, by the earnestness with which it has acted in the past crisis of our state and national history, by the patriotic devotion and interpretation of the constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof, by its conservative temper in resisting fanaticism, vice, corruption and fraud has shown itself a watchful guardian of the momentous trusts confided to its keeping. The honest, learned judge has pledged himself for the faith of contracts and treaties; he has jealously guarded the institutions of the country and bravely upheld them as the embodiment of our doctrines and our hopes. The traditions, laws and customs of the country have been committed to him, and with the ever active jealousy of encroachment, he has not disguised his fears of centralization or oppression. Hitherto, irrespective of all party relations, the judicial system was slowly but surely working out the great problems of domestic prosperity. Times have changed, however, and we have changed with them. Our present elective judiciary is indeed the black vomit of reconstruction.

"It may be seriously questioned whether under any circumstances the elective system is adequate for the purpose designed. All classes, high and low, sooner or later come before the tribunal of justice. Its judgments and decrees affect the humblest, as well as the most powerful individual and control the strongest combinations of men. We know that it is utterly impossible to keep the nomination and election clear of mere political influences and those of the worst kind. It is said that revolutions never go backward; nevertheless in the teeth of the adage I confess that I can see no better way of selecting judges than the mode pointed out by the unamended constitutions and the laws and by the general good sense of mankind. I believe that this method is wise and conservative, in harmony with our institutions and sufficiently democratic to satisfy the people. All the rest is faction, demagogism and cabal. The judge should represent no interest, no party, only the law; he is an umpire between man and man, between the individual and the body social.

"What is required in the judge is ability, learning, integrity. In public station it is as necessary to be thought honest as to be so, and the moment the popular mind once takes in the true position of the elective judge, the moment that it perceives the magistrate to be possessed of neither true power nor real dignity, and exposed perpetually to temptation, that moment the influence and usefulness of the judge will be destroyed. Their judgments in such cases will be received without respect and obeyed only so far as they can be enforced, and if the people shall ever break down and trample under foot the defences of unpopular power; the Judiciary will be scouted from their seats, their filthy and tattered ermine will be torn from their backs, and they will be driven out into hopeless ignominy as the meanest of sycophants, and the most truculent of demagogues.... A hundred and eighty years ago the English parliament, sick of the miseries resulting from a corrupt judiciary, changed the tenure of the office, abolished their dependence on the sovereign and made the tenure of their existence dependent on their good behavior alone. From that time to this the English judiciary has risen in character and influence. With us the system is elective. The judicial candidate, like a fish monger, goes with his wares into a market overt. He advertises his opinions--his promises, he makes his pledges, he puts a premium upon the ballot, he weighs to a nicety the purchasable value of negro electors. The rival candidate does the same, and hence the office is purchasable at the price of manhood, integrity, learning and capacity. Thus the whole machinery of the courts is run with an eye single to making political capital for the radical party and intensifying their hatred toward the South.

"And now gentlemen," the governor said in conclusion, "our meeting here to-day will be without its influence upon a power that can 'kill and make alive.'"

At the conclusion of the speech of the governor, it was resolved that messengers should be sent to the president with full power to enter into any treaty or compact for the maintenance of peace and order, and that Governor Ainsworth and Colonel Seymour shall be charged with the execution of the mission.

THE MILLS ARE GRINDING.

The stranger continuing, observed that he had desired this interview before exploiting a field untried and perhaps dangerous; and he would be greatly obliged if his host would be as frank and communicative as possible.

In the course of this interview, the arguments employed by the stranger disarmed the old man's suspicions, and in a confidential way the Colonel told Mr. Jamieson that he would communicate his knowledge of the matters as far as he could, but feared it would not be of much value, as he was under suspicion by the Federal authorities; having fought under Lee in the many battles of the South, he was still vehemently protesting against the invasion of his own country by the carpet bag government.

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