noomerious friends here insisted that ez I
wuz growin into the seer and yaller leaf, I shood abandon Dimocrisy, and
flote with the current. I cant. Ez troo ez the needle to the pole, so am
I to Dimocrisy. Young wimmin flock to marryins, middle-aged ones to
bornins, and old ones to buryins, which shows concloosively to the most
limited intelleck wat the mind uv each class runs upon. So it is with
me. To me Dimocrisy is wife, mother, and child.

I hev diskivered many things sense I hev bin in Kentucky--things wich
elevated my deprest heart ez yeast does dough, wich filled my shrunken
soul ez wind does a bladder.

The people uv Kentucky wuz all loyal. Doorin the horrible fratrisidle
war wich hez rent the proud temple uv liberty into twain, they preserved
a strict nootrality. I hed a conversation with wun old patriarch, who
asshoored me that he hed never taken sides.

Upon his honor, he asshoored me that, after battles, he rifled the
corpses uv both armies, impartially. "Cood any boddy be more nootraller
than that?" he asked. "My sons," sed he, "wuz in the confedrit army.
This fact wood hev turned the affections uv a week-minded man in that
direction; but when I thot uv the boys, I alluz thot also uv that
gellorious star-spangled banner, under wich I hed whipped my niggers and
sold their children; under whose shadder I hed men servants, and made
servants, and home-made servants born unto me. That banner hed bin my
shield. Ef my niggers run off, who so prompt in their pursoot ez the
Democratic marshals, wich alluz returned em to me ef it wuz possible?
The instooshun wuz guaranteed to me by solemn compermises, wich we cood
hev ez often ez we desired. Compermises wuz our best holt. Whenever we
wanted anything, all we hed to do wuz to ask for it. The Ablishinists
wood object, the Dimocrisy wood draw up a compermise, wich inklooded, ez
a rool, twice or 3 times wat we asked, and pass it to save the Union.
Sich a Union wuz worth havin, and I opposed all efforts to dissolute it.
Hed the South succeeded, I shood hev gone with em; for Kentucky
alone--the only nigger State in the North--wood hev bin helpless.
Scaldin tears hev I shed when contemplatin the horrors uv war; but I
cood do nothin to avert it. Kentucky wuz loyal, but nootral."

I find down here that the loyal citizens uv Kentucky who hev returned
from the confedrit service are not at all discouraged; on the contrary,
they are hopeful. Sed one to me (I bleeve he wuz a Ke