According to the long out of print text, Old Massa’s People, by Orland Kay Armstrong, first published in 1931, there were no State laws governing the return of runaway slaves prior to the mass murders performed by Nat Turner in February of 1831. That Nat Turner and his band butchered babies, children, women, non slave holding black and white men as well as slaves means little today, but at the time, the nation was aghast with the horror of it all. He was for all practical purposes a mass murderer of his day and folk were rightfully concerned. So concerned, in fact, that states began to pass laws restricting the travel of slaves. To quote from Old Massa’s People, “The plantation was made the unit of control, with each master responsible for the whereabouts of his servants. What they did on his acres was his business, but what they did away from the farm was the concern of the state. Counties were authorized to appoint and hire “patrollers” to see to it that any servant leaving his master’s domain did so with written consent. These patrollers promptly became “pattyrollers” to the slaves the whole south over.”

     By and large, pattyrollers were hardscrabble subsistence farmers with few acres whose quality of life was much inferior to the slaves who dwelled upon the large estate just across the fence-line. In many instances these folk were simply looked upon as white trash. So, when the opportunity presented itself for them to make themselves appear superior to the slave as well as ingratiate themselves to the large land owners, they jumped at the opportunity. And like any small time power-wanna-be given official license, most were cruel, abusive and crude.

     I believe that Nat Turner was by all accounts an aberration, he no doubt had become exposed to too much yankee abolition propaganda and simply broke. Why else would he have slaughtered so many innocents? It’s a shame that today folk are told to think that he represented something other than a cold-blooded murderer. Be that as it may, the point I wish to make is that his yankee inspired murder spree resulted in normal people taking precautions and instituting a system of safety checks, which is not unreasonable. But what is unreasonable is that the measure was forced upon a people who otherwise, were it not for yankee propaganda, would not have been necessary.

     As a student of Scripture, The King James Version of God’s Word, I have realized that many, many, times a type is used as an example. Lot in Genesis Chapter 19 could be called a type of backslidden believer saved from destruction with Sodom by God’s faithfulness to His Word. And Lot’s wife in the same chapter could be considered a type of nonbeliever who given God’s warning (don’t look back) willfully chose to ignore it and suffered destruction.

     So is Mr. Lincoln a perfect type of the pandering demagogue who represents the parasitic politicians that infest Washington today. And his greenback a perfect type of Federal Reserve Note, worth nothing more than the paper upon which it is printed. And his Cabinet, a type of influential lobby whose awesome connections schemed death to the Republic for selfish special interest. And his division of the states into military departments for unconstitutional control of civil government a perfect type of the bureaucratic alphabet soup of agencies that harass all levels of productive society today for the benefit of government itself and its parasitic minions. On and on the types of governmental torments go. Anyone whose mind is not otherwise occupied is free to read real history and so discern all the types of our present unpleasantness.

     But there is still one more type. A type born of yankee lust but well before their discovery of Mr. Lincoln and his political skill. That is the present day pattyroller. That is the IRS, BATF, OSHA, EPA, HSA, or other governmental agent whose duty it is to enforce tyrannical edicts. That is the individual whose whole unproductive life has been spent looking across the fence-line. The maleducated government bureaucrat who given the license can lord his power over any unfortunate slave who strays from the federal plantation. That the pattyroller is a type of our present day federal overseer is no mistake. That we are a type of slave on the federal plantation is the sad truth. And the fact that our lives are filled with meaningless choices only compounds the misery. The fighting war that was exhausted in 1865 did not end slavery; it only expanded the plantation. And we have been enduring yankee aggression and their pattyrollers ever since.        3/25/04