Unusual use of "Tarheel" (1848, 1852)

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/23/2013 11:06 AM, George Thompson wrote:
>There is a blues line to the effect that "I'm not raising frogs to fatten
>snakes" i. e., I'm not a fool.  Jack Teagarden uses it in a record from the
>late 20s or early 30s, if I recall, and Hot Lips Page, from probably the
>late 30s or early 40s.
>
>So calling someone a snake-feeder is perhaps calling him a fool?
>And I see that Henry Clay Snakefeeder has a pet hog.  It's a folk
>belief/herpetologically correct belief (which?) that pigs eat
>rattlesnakes.  So H. C. Snakefeeder is feeding snakes to feed to his pig --
>a fool's chore, if ever there was one.

Perhaps!  Bonnie's text was "Andrew Jackson Croutcutter will now be
allowed to play with Henry Clay Snakefeeder's pet hog".    I then
have to understand "snake feeder" not as someone who feeds something
to snakes, but as someone who feeds snakes to something else, such as
pigs.  If Clay was known to have "pet" hogs ...

 From http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/swine/duroc/ --

"In 1837 Henry Clay imported four red shoats from Spain for his farm
at Ashland, Kentucky."

Was Henry Clay's "fool's chore" promoting the Missouri Compromise of
1820 and the Compromise of 1850?  (Bonnie's text is 1852.)

Andrew Jackson was an opponent of Clay's, and beat him in the
election of 1832.  "After the election of Andrew Jackson [1828], Clay
led the opposition to Jackson's policies. His supporters included the
National Republicans, who were beginning to identify as "Whigs" in
honor of ancestors during the Revolutionary War. They opposed the
"tyranny" of Jackson, as their ancestors had opposed the tyranny of
King George III. Clay strongly opposed Jackson's refusal to renew the
charter of the Second Bank of the United States, and advocated
passage of a resolution to censure Jackson for his actions." Clay
later strove for the presidency a couple more times.  [Wikipedia, Henry Clay.]

Is Jackson's croutcutter coming to slice up Clay's Duroc hogs, to
make sauerkraut and sausage?

Now we only have to go on to associate "croutcutter"with Jackson.

And, of course, figure out "Fred Douglass Tarheel will se-saw with
John Quitman Screwdriver, and take the South side of the fence."  (I
would think *Quitman* would have taken the South's side!)

Joel

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