"I Hev Hopes uv Androo Johnson Myself":
Is Johnson Manageable?

CONFEDRIT X ROADS 
(wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky), 
February 29, 1866.

I notice, all over the North, the Democrisy is a firin guns, and marchin after brass bands, and hirin halls for endorsin Androo Johnson. Ez a sentinel on the watch-tower, I protest! In the name uv suffrin Kentucky, uv wich State I am a adopted citizen, I protest! In the name uv common sense and ordnary politikle sagacity, I protest!
Androo Johnson may possibly be on the high road to Dimocrisy but, ez yet, what ashoorence hev we? Am I datin my letters from "Post Orfis, Confedrit X Roads?" Hez there bin, as yit, any well authenticated case uv the removal uv a Ablishnist, and the apintment uv a constooshnel Democrat in his stead? Not that I hev heard of. Per contra, the Ablishnists -- them ez wuz appinted by Linkin-are still holdin on, ez calm ez a summer mornin, without any apparent fear uv any change affectin them.
Who pays for the Halls? Who pays the music? Who pays the Powder? Dimocrats who do these scent Post Offises in the distance. Are they like the war hoss in Job's writins, who smelled the battle afar off, and remarked Ha, Ha! to the trumpets? Let me entreat sich that they kin make a better investment uv their means. The cost uv one meetin, put in korn whisky, wood not only solace theirselves, but start half a dozen Ablishnists on the road to Dimocrisy.
Men is deceptive. I hev hopes uv Androo Johnson myself, and principally becoz Vallandigum and Fernandy Wood hev hopes. Them buzzards kin smell carrion a long distance, and they are seldom at fault. In this case, they may be. They base their hopes on Johnson's speech, at Washington, on the 22d. There may be suthin in it; but ain't it possible that the stench wich they took for Dimocrisy, and wich they sposed cum from Johnson, ariz from them ez surrounded him?
"But," sez a Dimocrat, whose nose, from long continued lack of supplies, hez softened down from a generous crimson to a ghastly bloo, and who woodent hev a small post orfis at no price, ef it wuznt offered him, "look at the class he spoke to."
Wat noncencel! Androo wuz mad. There wuz a mass uv bile on his politikle stumick wich must be got rid uv. He had sum nasty things to say, and it wuz a part uv the eternal fitness uv things that he shood hev a nasty audience to say em to.
I don't propose to go orf into spasms over the present situashun. Johnson proposes to continue the Freedmen's Buro, and hezn't no noshen of repealin the test oath, or uv drawin the military out uv the Dimocratik States. So far as heard from, we uv the South is still in a stait of abject cussitood. Our habis corpuses wich Linkin took away from us hevn't bin returned, and we are obleeged to git along ez best we kin without em. I knocked down a small nigger yisterday, for the purpus uv assertin the sooperiority uv the Caucashun race over the Afrikin, and wuz to-wunst hauled up afore a Freedmen's Buro, and fined. Our high-toned and chivalrous members are exclooded from Congris on the frivolus plea that they wuz kernels and briggydeer Ginerals in the Confederit servis; and all these outrages agin Dimocrisy Androo Johnson, by permittin, absolootly approves.

Ef Androo Johnson wants me, he knows the terms. I am his to command, for a consideration; ez much so ez is the thousands uv Demokrats who hev bin, for the past week, gittin up demonstrations. But I want suthin to go on. When I hev his permission, under the broad seel uv the Post Orfis Department, to write "P. M." after my illustrious name, I shell be prepared to wade in. I hev bin huntin up several reasons for supportin him. I hev em all ready. I only want this additional one, and then I fling my banner to the breeze. Faith is sed to be the sun of all religious systems. POST OFFIS is the central figger in all Democratic creeds -- the theme uv conversation by day, and the staple uv dreems by night. How long! oh, how long!