Col. Leonidas Metcalf recently made a speech at Carlisle, Nicholson county, Kentucky, of which we make the following extract. Had he made this speech in portions of Iowa he would have been denounced as an Abolitionist at least and perhaps worse:
I had started to pay my respects to the nigger lovers of the South. There has been no election since I can remember but the cry of nigger was raised. A constable, coroner, judge or president could not be nominated but the same old tune was ground. Law after law was passed to tighten the tenure by which we held them. State laws, fugitive laws, territorial legislatures might legislate a white man to the devil if they chose, if they had nary a nigger; but laws were passed to prevent them from legislating on the subject of nigger. A Republican Congress passed laws to prevent themselves from legislating on negroes in the territories, still the cry was more security, more concessions, until they require all to kneel to Gessler’s cap, or else they are not the Simon pure, or at least they are not the Simon Buckner pure. They swear that it is God’s institution, and that in his sublime wisdom he instigated the trader to the pious calling of catching and chaining the wild African in the hold of some gloomy ship to transport him from his native hills where his soul is in danger, to the cotton fields of America, all for the glory of God and the increase of his kingdom; that their pursuits and pleasure in Africa are loathsome to God; but when they are transported to the cotton fields and learned to raise six bales to the hand, great is his reward for he now pleaseth the Lord and shall have a seat in heaven; while traitors who have so long been protected in making black angels, quietly pocket the proceeds of the cotton. To all this you must solemnly promise and swear or you are an Abolitionist. – And some of these traitors are helping to populate heaven with angels only half black. – This is no joke; all this has been preached from the pulpit by the said sooty winged nigger satellites. They do not stop at insulting man, but blaspheme God with their obsequious dallying and pandering to a set of corrupt, fly-blown jackasses, who cannot see any other aim or object on earth through which pleasure or happiness can be secured but nigger; no other argument in politics but nigger; no other road to heaven but on a nigger’s back. They must have the Missouri Compromise, or they will break up the Government, then the Missouri Compromise must be repealed, it ain’t fair, or they will knock all the underpinnings from under Uncle Samuel.
Kansas must be allowed to do as she pleases – no intervention. Our sweet scented Beriah, who lives in the Governor’s palace and don’t rule the destinies of Kentucky exactly as he would wish to, made a speech in our county town when he was a candidate, in which he said that Congress [had] no power to legislate on Slavery, and must not intervene in Kansas affairs; that he would draw his sword and fight, before he would ask Congress to pass a pro-slavery or anti-slavery law for Kansas, for that would be setting the example that Congress had the right to intervene, and it might hereafter pass some law that we did not like, and if we complained they would tell us we must put up with it, because we asked them to open the door of intervention, and the point was settled, but behold! When Kansas herself attempts to settle her own business, they shift round and attempt to force her to be a slave State against her will. They are as unreasonable as a baby with a toy; cry if you give it to them, cry if you don’t give it to them; and like the spoiled child, they must now be spanked and put to rest. I have heard it preached ever since I can remember, that all we asked was to let us manage our own State affairs as we pleased, particularly our own peculiar institution; that the North wanted to take them away from us without compensation; that if the North would only acknowledge that there is such a thing as property in man we would be satisfied; now the President offers to us, to let us do just as we please. Buy our negroes, if we wish to sell, and if we do not want to sell, why, “keep them and that is the end of it,” and we will be protected with them thereby acknowledging that they are property, and thereby offering to defeat the abolitionists, in taking them without compensation; and also spoiling the grand argument of the disunionists, that Lincoln and his yankee hordes would take our negroes from us. They are mad at Lincoln for letting us do as we please; some of them denying the rebellion having anything to do with nigger and therefore, Lincoln is an abolitionist for bringing in the sacred name of nigger at this time. And some Union men are very hard to be please with anything the Government does, and such men rarely complain at the inequity being enacted by the rebels. If Jeff. Davis had come out with the same message, they would have pronounced it the most liberal, fair, impartial, statesmanlike document that was ever offered for the consideration of people of common sense. Oh! Consistency, thou are a jewel, made of gum elastic, and can be stretched to suit the conscience.
The cry of Abolitionist is the whip that is continually held up to scare the ignorant into the Democratic, and now the Secession ranks. – If you look at things with common sense, you are an Abolitionist. If you are for your country, and for the majority ruling, you are an abolitionist. It is time we put a stop to these insults. They cannot listen to reason. The only thing you can beat common sense into them with is a green sycamore club that will not bounce, or a bullet. A few wholesome truths may be bitter but never the less true. The accusation is very common that the North favors amalgamation. Now, to tell the truth, and shame old Nick, it is practiced to a fearful extent throughout the South and Kentucky. Go into any of our towns and see the different shades and colors.
Jet black, buff, and brown
Mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound.
But we will not speak loud on this. Somebody might be listening. You can know every traitor in the land as plainly as you can your hogs by the ear marks. They have a password, by which you can know them as well in the night as in the day time – that word is, Abolitionist. That is the sum total of all their argument.
I will relate an anecdote that shows a Virginian’s ideas on the nigger question and it is true. I heard it. Traveling in Virginia, I stopped at night at a house where they were holding a meeting, and any one seemed to have a right to tell what he knew. A spry young man took the pulpit, and let out on the crucifixion as follows “My brethren how meek was our Savior – they crucified him; they put a crown of thorns on his head; they stuck a spear in his side, and they drove nails through his hands, had he never said a word a bit more than if he had been a nigger.”
Fellow citizens, you all know that nigger is the raw head and bloody bones, the scarecrow, that is continually held up to your view, never ceasing agitation. You must stand sentinel all night, you must stand sentinel all day, with your musket, over your darling black angels, while they work in the field, to keep somebody from stealing them. And you must stand watch to keep down insurrection – eternal vigilance is the price of nigger. All of this hue-and-cry is kept up when there is not the slightest danger.
Well, gentlemen, does not all of this suggest to your mind a gleam of common sense? Does not the weary sentinel begin to ask himself, when will the relief come around? But no relief ever comes. Ah, me! When or how shall I ever find time to enjoy myself with my loved ones? Where is that happiness this sacred institution is to produce? When shall I rest? – Now I see this never ending clamor has at last beat it into my head that, I had better take the value of these gems from Afric’s burning sands, and invest in something that will not forever disturb my peace, use the musket on traitors, and take the hoe myself. Nigger and cotton has produced this rebellion, and should be made to foot the bill. There is a big nigger scare still on our Congress. They shrink, afraid to take the bull by the horns; it is not just that loyal men should fight out the battles to save their country from the iniquity of traitors, and then pay the damages they have caused. China had to foot the bill with England. Mexico had to come up to the captain’s office and settle, and the Swiss rebels had to pay for all the dishes they broke; and about twenty-five dollars per head on nigger, and two cents on cotton, will soon pay for educating the Southern mind.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 26, 1862, p. 2
I had started to pay my respects to the nigger lovers of the South. There has been no election since I can remember but the cry of nigger was raised. A constable, coroner, judge or president could not be nominated but the same old tune was ground. Law after law was passed to tighten the tenure by which we held them. State laws, fugitive laws, territorial legislatures might legislate a white man to the devil if they chose, if they had nary a nigger; but laws were passed to prevent them from legislating on the subject of nigger. A Republican Congress passed laws to prevent themselves from legislating on negroes in the territories, still the cry was more security, more concessions, until they require all to kneel to Gessler’s cap, or else they are not the Simon pure, or at least they are not the Simon Buckner pure. They swear that it is God’s institution, and that in his sublime wisdom he instigated the trader to the pious calling of catching and chaining the wild African in the hold of some gloomy ship to transport him from his native hills where his soul is in danger, to the cotton fields of America, all for the glory of God and the increase of his kingdom; that their pursuits and pleasure in Africa are loathsome to God; but when they are transported to the cotton fields and learned to raise six bales to the hand, great is his reward for he now pleaseth the Lord and shall have a seat in heaven; while traitors who have so long been protected in making black angels, quietly pocket the proceeds of the cotton. To all this you must solemnly promise and swear or you are an Abolitionist. – And some of these traitors are helping to populate heaven with angels only half black. – This is no joke; all this has been preached from the pulpit by the said sooty winged nigger satellites. They do not stop at insulting man, but blaspheme God with their obsequious dallying and pandering to a set of corrupt, fly-blown jackasses, who cannot see any other aim or object on earth through which pleasure or happiness can be secured but nigger; no other argument in politics but nigger; no other road to heaven but on a nigger’s back. They must have the Missouri Compromise, or they will break up the Government, then the Missouri Compromise must be repealed, it ain’t fair, or they will knock all the underpinnings from under Uncle Samuel.
Kansas must be allowed to do as she pleases – no intervention. Our sweet scented Beriah, who lives in the Governor’s palace and don’t rule the destinies of Kentucky exactly as he would wish to, made a speech in our county town when he was a candidate, in which he said that Congress [had] no power to legislate on Slavery, and must not intervene in Kansas affairs; that he would draw his sword and fight, before he would ask Congress to pass a pro-slavery or anti-slavery law for Kansas, for that would be setting the example that Congress had the right to intervene, and it might hereafter pass some law that we did not like, and if we complained they would tell us we must put up with it, because we asked them to open the door of intervention, and the point was settled, but behold! When Kansas herself attempts to settle her own business, they shift round and attempt to force her to be a slave State against her will. They are as unreasonable as a baby with a toy; cry if you give it to them, cry if you don’t give it to them; and like the spoiled child, they must now be spanked and put to rest. I have heard it preached ever since I can remember, that all we asked was to let us manage our own State affairs as we pleased, particularly our own peculiar institution; that the North wanted to take them away from us without compensation; that if the North would only acknowledge that there is such a thing as property in man we would be satisfied; now the President offers to us, to let us do just as we please. Buy our negroes, if we wish to sell, and if we do not want to sell, why, “keep them and that is the end of it,” and we will be protected with them thereby acknowledging that they are property, and thereby offering to defeat the abolitionists, in taking them without compensation; and also spoiling the grand argument of the disunionists, that Lincoln and his yankee hordes would take our negroes from us. They are mad at Lincoln for letting us do as we please; some of them denying the rebellion having anything to do with nigger and therefore, Lincoln is an abolitionist for bringing in the sacred name of nigger at this time. And some Union men are very hard to be please with anything the Government does, and such men rarely complain at the inequity being enacted by the rebels. If Jeff. Davis had come out with the same message, they would have pronounced it the most liberal, fair, impartial, statesmanlike document that was ever offered for the consideration of people of common sense. Oh! Consistency, thou are a jewel, made of gum elastic, and can be stretched to suit the conscience.
The cry of Abolitionist is the whip that is continually held up to scare the ignorant into the Democratic, and now the Secession ranks. – If you look at things with common sense, you are an Abolitionist. If you are for your country, and for the majority ruling, you are an abolitionist. It is time we put a stop to these insults. They cannot listen to reason. The only thing you can beat common sense into them with is a green sycamore club that will not bounce, or a bullet. A few wholesome truths may be bitter but never the less true. The accusation is very common that the North favors amalgamation. Now, to tell the truth, and shame old Nick, it is practiced to a fearful extent throughout the South and Kentucky. Go into any of our towns and see the different shades and colors.
Jet black, buff, and brown
Mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound.
But we will not speak loud on this. Somebody might be listening. You can know every traitor in the land as plainly as you can your hogs by the ear marks. They have a password, by which you can know them as well in the night as in the day time – that word is, Abolitionist. That is the sum total of all their argument.
I will relate an anecdote that shows a Virginian’s ideas on the nigger question and it is true. I heard it. Traveling in Virginia, I stopped at night at a house where they were holding a meeting, and any one seemed to have a right to tell what he knew. A spry young man took the pulpit, and let out on the crucifixion as follows “My brethren how meek was our Savior – they crucified him; they put a crown of thorns on his head; they stuck a spear in his side, and they drove nails through his hands, had he never said a word a bit more than if he had been a nigger.”
Fellow citizens, you all know that nigger is the raw head and bloody bones, the scarecrow, that is continually held up to your view, never ceasing agitation. You must stand sentinel all night, you must stand sentinel all day, with your musket, over your darling black angels, while they work in the field, to keep somebody from stealing them. And you must stand watch to keep down insurrection – eternal vigilance is the price of nigger. All of this hue-and-cry is kept up when there is not the slightest danger.
Well, gentlemen, does not all of this suggest to your mind a gleam of common sense? Does not the weary sentinel begin to ask himself, when will the relief come around? But no relief ever comes. Ah, me! When or how shall I ever find time to enjoy myself with my loved ones? Where is that happiness this sacred institution is to produce? When shall I rest? – Now I see this never ending clamor has at last beat it into my head that, I had better take the value of these gems from Afric’s burning sands, and invest in something that will not forever disturb my peace, use the musket on traitors, and take the hoe myself. Nigger and cotton has produced this rebellion, and should be made to foot the bill. There is a big nigger scare still on our Congress. They shrink, afraid to take the bull by the horns; it is not just that loyal men should fight out the battles to save their country from the iniquity of traitors, and then pay the damages they have caused. China had to foot the bill with England. Mexico had to come up to the captain’s office and settle, and the Swiss rebels had to pay for all the dishes they broke; and about twenty-five dollars per head on nigger, and two cents on cotton, will soon pay for educating the Southern mind.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 26, 1862, p. 2
