Now, to come to the nub, we’ve ben all disappinted,
An’ our leadin’ idees are a kind o’ disjinted,
Though, fur ez the nateral man could discern,
Things ough’ to ha’ took most an oppersite turn. 
But The’ry is jes’ like a train on the rail,
Thet, weather or no, puts her thru without fail,
While Fac’ ’s the ole stage thet gits sloughed in the ruts,
An’ hez to allow for your darned efs an’ buts,
An’ so, nut intendin’ no pers’nal reflections,
They don’t—­don’t nut allus, thet is,—­make connections:  30
Sometimes, when it really doos seem thet they’d oughter
Combine jest ez kindly ez new rum an’ water,
Both’ll be jest ez sot in their ways ez a bagnet,
Ez otherwise-minded ez th’ eends of a magnet,
An’ folks like you ‘n’ me, thet ain’t ept to be sold,
Git somehow or ’nother left out in the cold.

I expected ’fore this, ’thout no gret of a row,
Jeff D. would ha’ ben where A. Lincoln is now,
With Taney to say ‘twuz all legle an’ fair,
An’ a jury o’ Deemocrats ready to swear 40
Thet the ingin o’ State gut throwed into the ditch
By the fault o’ the North in misplacin’ the switch. 
Things wuz ripenin’ fust-rate with Buchanan to nuss ’em;
But the People—­they wouldn’t be Mexicans, cuss ’em! 
Ain’t the safeguards o’ freedom upsot, ’z you may say,
Ef the right o’ rev’lution is took clean away? 
An’ doosn’t the right primy-fashy include
The bein’ entitled to nut be subdued? 
The fect is, we’d gone for the Union so strong,
When Union meant South ollus right an’ North wrong, 50
Thet the People gut fooled into thinkin’ it might
Worry on middlin’ wal with the North in the right. 
We might ha’ ben now jest ez prosp’rous ez France,
Where p’litikle enterprise hez a fair chance,
An’ the People is heppy an’ proud et this hour,
Long ez they hev the votes, to let Nap hey the power;
But our folks they went an’ believed wut we’d told ’em
An’, the flag once insulted, no mortle could hold ’em. 
‘Twuz pervokin’ jest when we wuz cert’in to win,—­
And I, for one, wun’t trust the masses agin:  60
For a People thet knows much ain’t fit to be free
In the self-cockin’, back-action style o’ J.D.

I can’t believe now but wut half on ’t is lies; For who’d thought the North wuz agoin’ to rise, Or take the pervokin’est kin’ of a stump, ’thout ‘twuz sunthin’ ez pressin’ ez Gabr’el’s las’ trump?  Or who’d ha’ supposed, arter sech swell an’ bluster ’bout the lick-ary-ten-on-ye fighters they’d muster, Raised by hand on briled lightnin’, ez op’lent ’z you please In a primitive furrest ol femmily-trees,—­ 70 Who’d ha’ thought thet them Southuners ever ’ud show Starns with pedigrees to ’em like theirn to the foe, Or, when the vamosin’ come, ever to find Nat’ral masters in front an’ mean white folks behind?  By ginger, ef I’d ha’ known half I know