{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-political-apostate",
 "title": "A Political Apostate",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "book_slug": "black-beetles-in-amber",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 61,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1892,
  "venue": "Black Beetles in Amber (1892)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier"
  ]
 },
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
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  [
   {
    "text": "Good friend, it is with deep regret I note",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The latest, strangest turning of your coat;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Though any way you wear that mental clout",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The seamy side seems always to be out.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who could have thought that you would e’er sustain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Southern shotgun’s arbitrary reign?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your sturdy hand assisting to replace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The broken yoke on a delivered race;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ballot’s purity no more your care,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With equal privilege to dark and fair.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To Yesterday a traitor, to To-day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’re constant but the better to betray",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To-morrow. Your convictions all are naught",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the wild asses of the world of thought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, flying mindless o’er the barren plain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perceive at last they’ve nothing so to gain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, turning penitent upon their track,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Economize their strength by flying back.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ex-champion of Freedom, battle-lunged,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No more, red-handed, or at least red-tongued,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brandish the javelin which by others thrown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clove Sambo’s heart to quiver in your own!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Confess no more that when his blood was shed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you so sympathetically bled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bow that spanned the mutual cascade",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was but the promise of a roaring trade",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In offices. Your fingering now the trigger",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shows that you knew your Negro was a nigger!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ad hominem this argumentum runs:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Peace!⁠—let us fire another kind of guns.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I grant you, friend, that it is very true",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Blacks are ignorant⁠—and sable, too.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What then? One way of two a fool must vote,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And either way with gentlemen of note",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose villain feuds the fact attest too well",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That pedagogues nor vice nor error quell.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fiercest controversies ever rage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Miltons and Salmasii engage.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No project wide attention ever drew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But it disparted all the learned crew.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As through their group the cleaving line’s prolonged",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With fiery combatants each field is thronged;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In battle-royal they engage at once",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For guidance of the hesitating dunce.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Titans on the heights contend full soon⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On this side Webster and on that Calhoun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The monstrous conflagration of their fight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Startling the day and splendoring the night!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both are unconquerable⁠—one is right.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will’t keep the pigmy, if we make him strong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From siding with a giant in the wrong?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Genius strikes for error, who’s afraid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To arm poor Folly with a wooden blade?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O Rabelais, you knew it all!⁠—your good",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And honest judge (by men misunderstood)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knew to be right there was but one device",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Less fallible than intellect⁠—the dice.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The time must come⁠—Heaven expedite the day!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When all mankind shall their decrees obey,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And nations prosper in their peaceful sway.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}