New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-01-15
Nqu Orleans 4ailp Grestent.
Letter from Bill Arp to his old friend John
Happy.
LErnm the Nashville banner I'd


personally about some things that's weighin' on
me- look upon you as a friend, and feel like
dfoppln' few lines byway, of unburthenin' my
ssorrowful reflections. For the last few years you
nave travelled round right smart and must have
made heap OF luminous observations. ! hear you
are now Twin in Nashville, where you can
see oil sides OF everything and read all the papers
where you can study Paradise lost without
book, and see the Devil and his angels without
drawin' on the imagination, and thought may be
you might assist me in my troubled feelings.
have always, Mr. Happy, endeavored to see the
bright side Of every pkter if it had any, but there
is one or two subjecks about which ! had mighty
nigh gin it up.
| want you to tell me if you can, about what
time are the Black Republicans goin' to quit, per
mad with us about? Old skewball says its for
treason that we've gone and done, and that am
the sowest perceivin man he ever seed not to have
found it out. |.
Now Treason is mighty bad thing and any man
found guilty of Treason ought to be talked to by
preacher right under the gallus, and then be al.
lowed to stand on nothn for few hours by the
clock. Shore enuf Treason mean. Treason
where a man slips around on the sly time of war
and takes sides agin his country. Jest as though
fur instance, shood have worked agin my survi-
vim State after she had seeded, and had stole her
powder or deserted her in time of peril, while she
was defendin herself agin the combided assaults
of the world, the flesh and the devil. woodn't
have blamed anybody for hanging me for the like,
would you! But Shewball says we amt got no
SuVTeen 9tateS--lnat tne WAT DaQ SelLleQ tLe QueS
ton agin US on that pint; / don't think so my
friend. / admit thatwe amt nuthen in pertickler
now, but we did hav suvreen States before the
war, and the war amt settled nor unsettled any
great principles. There amt no trial of right or
wrong by wages of battle now days. For nifty
nigh hundred years this country hav been a big
dabatin society on these questions. From the
time of Hamilton and Jefferson down to 1861, the
right Nv State to dissolve her own partnership
hav been argued by powerfully minded men, and
there has been more fur it than agin it-more
Presidents, more senators, more statesmen, more
judges, more people, MASSACHUSETTS and Cunnect-
icut were fur it at wun time, and bellered round
and paved dirt amazin tn git out, but they found
out Barcus was willin and they didn't go. | be-
leeve, however, that old Nutmeg did stay out
about two hours and half.
Wen, the South went out nifty unwilllngly, Mr..
Happy as you know. She had been nifty nigh
kicked out for long time, and there was a big
party that wanted us to go out and stay out Every
body knows that we dident git along in peace, so
we concluded to do like Abreham and his brother
in-law: to separate our households. What they
wanted us for. never could see and can't see yit.
lwouldent have Niger or a dog to stay round
me that dident want to. Some say they wanted
US to strengthen EN- agin their enemies in case of
Turin war Does any man in his senses expect
us to help the Black Republicans whip anybody
Have we got any worse enemies than they are !
They can't make us fight reckon if we don't want
to. We've i0ut enut and made nothin by it but
glory, and we aint going to CINE in another war
to crafty other people. Dodds says before he'd
pull trigger for Thad Stevens, he'd have his soul
transmigrated 10 a bench leg'd fee, and bark at
his daddy's mules two thousand years. wonder
if the experience of the last four years amt salts
fed these fellows that our boys are dangerous
set to be turned loose in time of war. Wouldent
you think that as matter of policy they would
soft solder us little, and quit their sanderfn. If
we do fight for EN-, there will be one condition
certain. They mout be put where David put urah,
and our boys mout consent to make charge or
two behind en- at the pint of the bagnet.
RrJt pa11t -pn tn all mo lain 7 rid M
about the history of this business. 1t amt long
story, and I'll tell it the way see it. Old Pewry
tan went off one day with some ships, ard took a
few beads and juce-harps and bought up lot Of
captured niggers from the Hotentots or some
other tots, and stole a few more on the coast of
Atrhy and brought EN- over and educated EN- to
work in the field, and cut wood, and skeer bars
and so forth, but not incudin votin nor mustern
nor the jury business nor forth
Well, after while they found that the cold winds
and Goldfish airs of New England dident agree with
the niger. and so they begun to slide EN- down
South as fast as possible After they had sold EN-
became sanctifed about slavery, sorter like the
woman that got converted and then give all her
novels away to her unccnverted sister. Well, the
Old Dominion and SIGH of her sons as Washington
and Jefferson, and Madison, and Randolf, bought
EN- and worked EN- to satisfaction, whereupon old
Pew got jealous and began to preach agin it to
break it down.
The fakt is they wouldent work gals in their
conscientiously opposed to everything that don't
put muney in their pockets. After while they
went into the striped almanak bisness, maxim
bloody pikters of poor laserated niggers gettn a
hundred lashes for nuthin, and mournn for their
first born because they were not. Then they
started the stealth program, and while we were
yin all the big courts and all the little courts to
git hack one silky melater by the name of bred
Skott, they were stealth from five to fifty day,
and GOVERN their carcases all over with Niger
larceny, and smugm the Constitution into an abo
lshun mush They built fence around the institu
ton as high as Humans gallus, and hemmed itin
and laid siege to it jest like an army would besege
a city to starve out the inhabitants. They kept
peggin at US until we got mad-show enuff mad
and we resolved to cut loose from EN- and paddle
our own canoo.
Now all this time we had some good friends
among enl-some who swore we were imposed
upon, and said we had good cause to dissolve the
partnership. They say that if we did seseed and
the abolishinests made war upon us, they would
stand by US and throw their lives and fortunes and
their sakred honor right in the breach and the
first fight would be over their dead bodies and SO
forth and so on. My memory is bad, but remem.
Der that some of EN- were named James Buchanan
and Dan Dickinson, and John Cochran, and Logan,
and Cushn, and Butler, surnamed the Beast and
McLernand, and Stephen A. Douglas, who got his
commission about the time he died, and carried it
with him to parts unknown, and lastly, man by
the name of Andy Johnson, who, suppose, are
some relation to the President of the United States
bad conduct of his relations, and don't throw it
up to nobody. suppose our President are doin
he best he can, and Mr.. Ethrdge oughtent to be
taken up his record.
Well, the war come on, and show enuf Logan
and Cushn and McLernand and Company buzzed
around while like humble bees till they were
bought up, and then they lit over the other side
They got their reward, and they are welcome to
it, so far as am concerned.
How is it now, Mr. Happy? They conquered us
by the sword, but they haven't convinced us OF
nothin much that I know of. All is lost save
honor, and that they can't steal from us MOI
tarnish.
If they had held out the hand of fellowship, we
would have made friends and buried the Ratchet
But the very mint they whipped us, they begun
to heller treason from one end of the country to
the other, just like they had made bran new dis
kovery. 1t seemed to strike them all of a sudden
like an Gpost fakto law, and they wanted to GO
into general hangn bisness, and keep it up as
long as they could fine rope and timber.
Now, the1dea Of several millions of American
freemen being guilty Of treason at once! The
idea of applyn such a crime to eleven great suv.
reen States, which met in soem convention and
in the light of day dissolved Union they had ere.
ated, and which had been disunion for twenty
years! The idea of applyin' treason to the Old
Dominion, the muther of States and of Washing ton
and Jefferson and Madison and Marshall and Pat
rick Henry and all the Lees and who give away
all the territory to the Northwest for nothin! Is
she to be scandaized by these new-light Christians
who are compounded from all the skum of all Gre
alton, and think that Paul and Peter and Revea-