XII.
The President's 22d of February Speech.--The Account thereof of One
behind the Scenes.--Hopes and Fears of the Democracy.
WASHINGTON, February 23, 1866.
I don't know; but there is a still small voice within me wich whispers,
"All is well!" The delusive phantom, Hope, may be playin false with me.
The wish may be paternal parient to the thought, and I may be indulgin
in a dream from wich I shel be, to-morrer, roodly awakened; but it's my
opinion that the day-star uv glory hez arozen onto the Dimocracy; that
our night uv gloom is over; and that, at larst, the Government, or at
least the only part we care about,--the offisis,--is ourn. I heerd
Androo Johnson speak last nite! I stood beside him! I helpt hold him up!
I SMELT HIS BREATH. It's all rite!
I hed hopes when he vetoed that large and varied assortment uv Ablishn
abominashens,--the Freedmen's Burow bill,--notwithstandin there were
pints in his message I coodent sanction. The veto wuz heavenly, but his
reasons were unsound. When he expressed hisself ez bein determined upon
sekoorin the niggers in their rites, I felt fearful that there wuz a
honist diffrence uv opinion atween him and Congress wich mite be
settled, and then what wood become uv us? Ef the niggers is to hev
rites, in the name uv Heaven, I asked myself, what difference does it
make to us whether they hev em by Charles Sumner's system (on whose head
rest cusses!), or A.
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