’Now, jest think on thet, gentlemen!  I, a white boy, and, ‘cordin’ to the Declaration of Independence, jest as good blood as the old Cunnel, bein’ larned to read by an old slave, and that old slave a’most worked to death, and takin’ his nights, when he orter hev been a restin’ his old bones, to larn me!  I’m d—­d if he don’t get to heaven for that one thing, if for nothin’ else.

’Wal, you all know the rest—­how, when I’d grow’d up, I settled har, in the old North State, and how the young Cunnel backed my paper and set me a runnin’ at turpentinin’.  P’r’aps you don’t think this has much to do with the Yankees, but it has a durned sight, as ye’ll see raather sudden.  Wal, arter a while, when I’d got a little ’forehanded, I begun shippin’ my truck to York and Bosting; and at last my Yankee factor, he come out har, inter the backwoods, to see me, and says he:  ’Jones, come North and take a look at us.’  I’d sort o’ took to him.  I’d had lots to do with him afore ever I seed him, and I allers found him as straight as a shingle.  Wal, I went North, and he took me round, and showed me how the Yankees does things.  Afore I knowed him, I allers thought—­as p’r’aps most on ye do—­that the Yankee war a sort o’ cross atween the devil and a Jew; but how do you s’pose I found ’em?  I found that they sent the pore man’s children to schule.  FREE—­and that the schulehouses war a d—­d sight thicker than the bugs in Miles Privett’s beds! and thet’s saying a heap, for ef eny on you kin sleep in his house, excep’ he takes to the soft side of the floor, I’m d—­d.  Yas, the pore man’s children are larned thar FREE!—­all on ’em—­and they’ve jest so good a chance as the sons of the rich man!  Now, arter that, do you think that I—­as got all my schulin’ from an old slave, by the light of a borrored pine-knot—­der you think that I kin say any thing agin the Yankees?  P’r’aps they do steal—­though I don’t know it—­p’r’aps they do debauch thar wives and darters, and sell thar mothers’ vartue for dollers—­but ef they do, I’m d—­d ef they don’t send pore children ter schule—­and that’s more’n we do—­and let me tell you, until we do, we must count on thar bein’ cuter and smarter nor we are.

‘This gentleman, too, my friends, who’s been a givin’ sech a hard settin’ down ter his own relation, arter they’ve broughten him up and givin’ him sech a good schulein’ for nothin’, he says the Yankees want to interfere with our niggers.  Now, thet han’t so, and they couldn’t ef they would, ’cause it’s agin the Constitution—­and they stand on the Constitution a durned sight solider nor we do.  Didn’t thar big gun—­Daniel Webster—­didn’t he make mince-meat o’ South-Carolina Hayne on that ar subject?  But I tell you they han’t a mind to meddle with our niggers; they’re a goin’ ter let us go ter h—­l our own way—­and we’re goin’ thar mighty fast, or I hevn’t read the last census.’

‘P’r’aps you han’t heerd on th’ Ab’lisheners, Andy?’ cried a voice from among the audience.