"No white man sets in airth's broad aisle "Wut is there lef' I'd like to know, "Ef we're to hev our ekle rights, 't wun't du to 'low no competition; [Applause.] [Continood applause.] "So fur I'd writ an' could n' jedge Sence Johnson's speech an' veto message. "I like the speech best, I confess, The logic, preudence, an' good taste on 't, There's some dependence to be placed on 't; It's narrer, but 'twixt you an' me, Out o' the allies o' J. D. A temp'ry party can be based on 't. "Jes' to hold on till Johnson's thru 66 An' dug his Presidential grave is, [Laughter.] An' then! I who knows but we could slew The country roun' to put in ? Wun't some folks rare up when we pull Out o' their eyes our Union wool An' larn 'em wut a p'lit'cle shave is! Oh, did it seem 'z ef Providunce Should claim th' old iron for his sheer [Gret laughter.] Thet tells the story! Thet's wut we shall git Thet comes from nowhere an' from everywhere, then, To settle, once for all, thet men wuz men? Oh, airth's sweet cup snetched from us barely tasted, The grave's real chill is feelin' life wuz wasted! Lovin' you best, coz we loved Her the more, feel Ef she upon our memory turned her heel, An' unregretful throwed us all away My frien's, I've talked nigh on to long enough. [Tumult'ous applause and cries of "Go on!" "Don't stop! "] NOTES I AM indebted to Mr. Frank Beverly Williams for these illustrative notes. FIRST SERIES. This series of the Biglow Papers relates to the Mexican War. It expresses the sentiment of New England, and particularly of Massachusetts, on that conflict, which in its aim and conduct had little of honor for the American Republic. The war was begun and prosecuted in the interest of Southern slaveholders. It was essential to the vitality of slavery that fresh fields should constantly be opened to it. Agriculture was almost the sole industry in which slaves could be profitably employed. That their labor should be wasteful and careless to preserve the productive powers of the soil was inevitable. New land was ever in demand, and the history of slavery in the United States is one long series of struggles for more territory. It was with this end in view that a colony of roving, adventurous Americans, settled in the thinly populated and poorly governed region now known as Texas, revolted from the Mexican government and secured admission to the Union, thus bringing on the war with Mexico. The Northern Whigs had protested against annexation, but after the war began, their resistance grew more and more feeble. In the vain effort to retain their large Southern constituent, they sacrificed justice to expediency and avoided an issue that would not be put down. The story of the Mexican War is the story of the gradual decline of the great Whig party, and of the growth of that organization, successively known as the Liberty, Free-Soil, and Republican party, whose policy was the exclusion of slavery from all new |