THE SILVER-TONGUED ORATOR.
JOHN A. QUITMAN--ROBERT J. WALKER--ROBERT H. ADAMS--FROM A COOPER-SHOP
TO THE UNITED STATES SENATE--BANK MONOPOLY--NATCHEZ FENCIBLES--SCOTT IN
MEXICO--THOMAS HALL--SARGENT S. PRENTISS--VICKSBURG--SINGLE-SPEECH
HAMILTON--GOD-INSPIRED ORATORY--DRUNK BY ABSORPTION--KILLING A
TAILOR--DEFENCE OF WILKINSON.
John A. Quitman came to Mississippi in early life. He was a native of
the State of New York; had, at first, selected a location in Ohio, but,
not being pleased, he determined on coming South, and selected Natchez
for his future home. His father was a Prussian; a minister of the
German Lutheran Church, and a very learned man. He had preached in
seven kingdoms, and in every one in the language of the country. He
came to the State of New York when young, and was the bearer of the
recognition of the independence of the United States by Frederick the
Great, of Prussia. He settled in one of the interior counties of New
York, where was born and reared his distinguished son.
When young Quitman came to Natchez, he found the Bar a strong one; but
determined to follow the profession of law, and after a short time
spent in the office of William B. Griffith, he was admitted to the Bar,
and opened an office. Regardless of the overwhelming competition, his
open, frank manners soon made him friends, and the stern honesty of his
character won the confidence of every one. In a short time, he married
the only daughter of Henry Turner, a wealthy planter, and was received
into copartnership by William B. Griffith, a lawyer of great ability
and eminence, then in full practice at Natchez, and who had married the
daughter of Judge Edward Turner, and the cousin of Quitman's wife.
Quitman's rise to eminence was rapid in his profession, but more so in
the public estimation as a man of great worth. His affability,
kindness, and courtesy were so genial and so unaffected as to fasten
upon every one, and soon he was the most popular man in the county.
Soon after Quitman, came Duncan and Robert J. Walker--the latter
subsequently so distinguished as a senator in Congress from
Mississippi, and still more distinguished as the Secretary of the
Treasury during the Administration of Mr. Polk. A close intimacy grew
up between Quitman and R.J. Walker. This intimacy influenced greatly
the future of Quitman. Walker was from Pennsylvania, and had married
Miss Bache, the niece of George M. Dallas, sister to the great
Professor Bache, and great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin. Mrs.
Walker was a lady of great beauty, of rare accomplishments, and
distinguished for her modesty and womanly bearing. Mr. Bache, the
father of Mrs. Walker, emigrated to Texas, was in the Senate of her
Congress at the time she was received into the United States, and was
the only man who voted against the union. He represented Galveston,
and, after his death, that young city, in honor of his services,
erected a monument to his memory.
Walker was of ardent temperament, great abilities, strong will, intense
application, and was soon, at the Bar, among the first lawyers in the
State. He wanted the softness and genial qualities of Quitman, but was
superior to him mentally; and in prompt, decisive action his was the
stronger character, and controlled. Quitman, being intimately
associated with the leading men of the party supporting Mr. Adams, had
adopted their opinions and politics; Walker was an ardent supporter of
Jackson, and claimed to be the first man who brought forward his name
for the Presidency, when he was a citizen of Pennsylvania. Soon after
the election of General Jackson, Quitman, displeased with Mr. Clay,
abandoned his Whig associates, and united himself with the Democratic
party, and from that time until his death was a devoted Democratic
partisan. These two men exercised, perhaps, more influence in the State
than any others of their day.
Robert H. Adams and William B. Griffith, who were considered the ablest
members of the Bar in the State, died young, and in the opening of
their political career. Adams was a man of remarkable ability. He was a
native of East Tennessee, and was a mechanic, with limited education,
and without one single advantage save his talents. He came a stranger
to Natchez, and in a few years was eminent in his profession, and
intellectually one of the first men in the State--a man of fine
appearance, with large head, and intellectual features. He was sent by
the city of Natchez to the Legislature of the State, and such was the
impression upon the members of his great abilities, that they, at the
ensuing session, elected him to the United States Senate. He served but
one session, but made, in that short period, a high reputation with the
first minds of the nation. Returning home, he resumed his profession;
and, after severe fatigue during the heated period of summer, he
imprudently drank too freely of ice-water, and died from its effects.
There was, at this time, no man of more promise in all the country. He
was but thirty-eight years of age, and, without patronage or patrimony,
had risen from the cooper's shop to a distinguished position in the
Senate of the United States.
Griffith preceded him to the grave one or two years, a victim of yellow
fever.
Quitman and Walker came now prominently before the people. They resided
in Natchez, and there was a strong prejudice in the east and the north
of the State against the people of that city and the County of Adams.
There were quite a number of families, in the city and county, of large
fortunes. These were exclusive in their associations. With one or two
exceptions they belonged to the Whig party, but none of them aspired to
political preferment.
There was but one bank in the State--this was located in Natchez, and
was under the control of these men of fortune. It had at the time of
obtaining its charter paid an extravagant bonus to the State, upon
condition no other bank should be chartered for the period granted to
this. It was a monopoly, and was charged with great partiality in its
management. Its accommodations were for the few, and these only granted
for the purpose of enhancing the already bloated wealth of the
stockholders, directors, and their special pets. This exclusive
aristocracy was odious to the fierce democratic feelings of the masses.
They counted their wealth by millions; their homes were palaces; their
pleasure-grounds Edens; and all this was the fruit of an odious and
oppressive monopoly. This fallacious and most ridiculous idea fastened
itself upon the minds of the masses, and was fostered and encouraged by
many who knew better, but who were willing to pander to the popular
taste for popular preferment. R.J. Walker seized hold upon this
popular whim, and leading the multitude, succeeded in procuring
charters for several other banks, in defiance of the vested rights of
the Bank of Mississippi.
Stephen Duncan was the president of the bank, and, under his advice,
the directors surrendered the charter, and wound up the business of the
bank. Duncan was one of the best business-men in the Union. From very
small beginnings he had amassed an immense fortune--was a man of rare
sagacity and wonderful energy. He was the cousin of Walker, but was
always opposed to him in politics. This was the commencement of the era
which culminated in the repudiation of the State's obligations and the
general ruin of her people. It was about this period that Jefferson
Davis first made his _debut_ as a public man in the State, with William
M. Gwinn, and Henry S. Foote, McNutt, J.F.H. Claiborne, and Albert
Gallatin Brown. Quitman was made chancellor of the State, and
disappointed sadly his friends. His administration of this branch of
the judiciary was weak and wild; a vast number of his decisions, or
awards in chancery, were overruled, and, in disgust, or from a
consciousness that a chancery judgeship was not his speciality,
resigned. His mind was greatly overrated: it was neither strong,
logical, nor brilliant. His classical attainments were of the first
order, and I doubt if the Union furnished two better or more finished
linguists than John A. Quitman and H.S. Foote.
Walker and Davis were the leading minds of the period. They were both
men of education, extended reading; both men of fine oratorical powers;
both men of strong will, ripe judgment, and exceedingly tenacious of
purpose. Walker was many years the senior of Davis, and was in advance
of him some years as a successful politician. Foote, as an orator, was
greatly the superior of all of these; but there was in him want of
judgment, want of fixed principles and fixity of purpose. When first
appearing before the people of the State, he carried the multitude with
him as a tempest drives a feather. In a contest for Governor he came
out in opposition to Quitman, drove him from the canvass, and triumphed
over Davis, who was placed by his party in nomination to fill the place
of Quitman. This triumph was evanescent: he left the position, perhaps,
the most unpopular man in the State.
Quitman's abilities were almost exclusively military. This proclivity
of mind manifested itself in very early life. He organized a volunteer
company, the Natchez Fencibles, soon after he came to the Bar, and took
great pride in its drill and soldierly bearing and appearance. He
seized with avidity the opportunity the Mexican war presented, and
there greatly distinguished himself. After the termination of this war,
he was engaged (very little to the honor of his sagacity) in
endeavoring to organize a filibustering expedition against the Island
of Cuba. In this he signally failed. He was elected to Congress, where
he was principally distinguished by his extreme Southern views, but
gained little or no reputation as a politician or statesman.
In the qualities of heart, Quitman was surpassed by no man; his moral
character was unstained. In sincerity and devotion to his friends, no
man was his superior. He had acquired large wealth by his
marriage--this he had increased by judicious management, and none more
freely used it for the benefit of his friends or the public interest.
He was especially generous toward poor, enterprising young men; such
instances of assistance rendered are innumerable. His friends never
deserted him. To his command, during the Mexican war, he was
exceedingly profuse with his means in aiding their necessities and
supplying their wants. He was universally commented upon as the most
munificent officer of the army. He was ambitious and courageous; and
this ambition knew no bounds.
Upon his return from Mexico, I met him in New Orleans, in company with
that ill-starred man, General Shields, of Illinois, and who, Irishman
as he was, fell fighting to fasten upon the South the fetters she now
wears. We had not conversed ten minutes before, taking my arm, he
walked apart from his visitors and Shields, and commenced to converse
upon the consequences of the war. Turning to me, he remarked: "General
Scott is greatly wanting in ambition, he has no daring aspirations; he
has thrown away the finest opportunity ever presented to man for
aggrandizement. Had I commanded the army, and accomplished this great
success, I would have established an empire, and made of Mexico a great
nation. He had only to say so, and the Mexicans were ready to crown him
emperor. He could have made dukes, marquises, lords, and barons of his
officers, and endowed them with principalities; the soldiers would have
remained with him; and in six months, enough from the United States and
Europe would have joined his standard, to have held in check the
lawless brigands who make anarchy for the country. The spoils of the
Church would have rewarded the soldiers; immigration would have poured
into the country, and his name and fame have been commensurate with
time. Everything invited him to the act; he could not or would not see
it--he had but one idea, 'This will make me President!' and a lifetime
of glory and power was sacrificed for the empty hope of four years
filling the Presidential chair."
It was a grand conception, but he seemed to take no account of the
difficulties which would have interposed. He assumed that the United
States would have been content with the great outrage, and have
sanctioned the act; and that European nations would have immediately
recognized the new empire. I knew him well enough to know that he would
have attempted the enterprise and braved the consequences; but doubt
whether he or Scott had the talent for the accomplishment of such an
undertaking. General Quitman was one of the unfortunates who received a
portion of the poison prepared for some victim or victims at Washington
upon the inauguration of Mr. Buchanan. It was not immediately fatal,
but he never fully recovered from it, and in a few months after sank
into the grave.
No man ever died more regretted by his personal friends than John A.
Quitman. He was in every relation of life a true man, chivalrously
brave, nobly generous, and sternly faithful to all that ennobles human
nature. Had his brain been equal to his soul, he had been the world's
wonder. It was said of him by one who knew and loved him:
"His spirit has gone to the Spirit that made him,
The rest of the virtuous, chivalric, and brave;
He sleeps where the friends of his early youth laid him,
And green grows the laurel that springs by his grave."
Duncan Walker practised law with his brother until elevated to the
Bench of the criminal court for the city of Natchez and County of
Adams. He served with distinguished capacity for only one or two years,
when he was prostrated by a severe attack of yellow fever. From this he
never entirely recovered. Retiring from the Bench, he directed his
attention to planting in Lower Louisiana; but his health continuing to
decline, he was induced to try for the winter the climate of Cuba. It
was but a few weeks after reaching there that he died at St. Jago de
Cuba. Judge Walker was distinguished for great purity of character as
well as superior legal attainments. His modesty was almost feminine;
yet he was a man of remarkable firmness and decision. By many he was
thought superior intellectually to his more distinguished and prominent
brother. Few men may be truthfully termed superior to R.J. Walker.
In 1826, there came to Natchez, from Maine, a youth who was a cripple.
He was without acquaintances or recommendations, and also without
means. He was in search of a school, and expressed his intention of
making the South his future home. His appearance was boyish in the
extreme, for one who professed to be twenty years of age. At that time
most of the planters in the region of Natchez employed private teachers
in their families, who resided with the family as one of the household.
A lady near Natchez, the widow of Judge Shields, was desirous of
employing a teacher, and tendered the situation to the young Yankee.
Mrs. Shields had grown-up sons, young men of fine attainments, and who
subsequently distinguished themselves as men of sterling worth. They
were soon delighted with the young stranger, who was busily employed in
his new vocation with their younger brothers. I remember to have heard
Mr. Thomas Shields say the young man teaching at his mother's was a
most remarkable man, and narrate some instances of his great powers of
memory, accompanied with facts which came within his own knowledge.
These were so very extraordinary, that notwithstanding the high
character for integrity borne by Shields, there were many who doubted
them.
There lived at no great distance from Mrs. Shields, a planter, Mr.
Thomas Hall. This man was a coarse and illiterate overseer for some
years in the county, but having carefully husbanded his earnings, was
enabled, in company with James C. Wilkins, to commence planting upon an
extensive scale. At the time this young man was teaching at Mrs.
Shields', Hall had accumulated quite a fortune, and was a man of
comparative leisure. His mind was good, and now that he had an
abundance of the world's goods, and was becoming a man of consideration
in the community, he felt, in his intercourse with his educated
neighbors, the want of that cultivation which would make him their
equal. This had made him morbidly sensitive, and whenever an
opportunity presented, he improved it in acquiring all the information
possible.
On Saturdays the young schoolmaster would frequently ride over and
converse with Hall. The strong mind and coarse but cordial manners of
Hall pleased him. He was a specimen of the Southerner possessing
salient points, and was a study for the Down-Easter. Never before had
he met such a specimen, and it was his delight to draw him out, little
deeming he was filling the same office for his friend. They were
mutually agreeable the one to the other, and their association grew
into intimacy. Each to their friends would speak of the other as a
remarkable man. Assuredly they were; for neither had ever met such
specimens as they presented to each other. They sometimes joined in a
squirrel-hunt about the plantation of Hall. The schoolmaster's lameness
compelled him to ride, while Hall preferred to walk. After a fatiguing
tramp upon one occasion, they sat down upon the banks of Cole's Creek,
where Hall listened with great delight to the conversation of his
companion. Suddenly Hall started up, and exclaimed, with more than his
usual warmth:
"You have taught me more than I ever knew before meeting with you; but
I ought not to say what I am going to say. You, sir, were never made
for a schoolmaster. By the eternal God!"--Hall was a Jackson man--"you
know more than any man in the county, and you have got more sense than
any of them, though you are nothing but a boy. Now, sir, go to town and
study law with Bob Walker; he's the smartest of any of them. In two
years you will be ahead of him. If you haven't got the money to pay
your way, I have, and you shall have it."
The term for which he had engaged was now expiring, and, as Hall had
requested, he went into the office of Robert J. and Duncan Walker, and
commenced the study of law.
This Yankee youth was Sargent S. Prentiss. Prentiss remained in the
office of Walker for one year, and was a close student. When admitted
to the Bar, he went to Vicksburg and opened an office. At that time
Vicksburg was a new place, and presented peculiar inducements to young
professional men. The country upon the Yazoo River--and indeed the
entire northern portion of the State--had but recently been quit of its
Indian population, and was rapidly filling up with an active and
enterprising people. The soil was fertile, and the production of
cotton, to which it is so eminently suited, was daily growing in
importance. Vicksburg was the market-point. Trade was increasing daily,
and rapidly filling up the town with mercantile men. The young and
enterprising were hurrying thither, and in a few years there was met
here more talent and more enterprise than at any other point in the
State. The Bar had Prentiss, John Guion, McNutt, Sharkey, the three
Yergers, Anderson, Lake, Brook, Burwell, and many others of
distinction, including the erratic H.S. Foote.
The entire population was a live one, and every branch of business was
pushed with a _vim_ commensurate with the abilities and enterprise of
the population. The planters of the immediately adjacent country were
men of intelligence and character, and were animated with the spirit of
the people of the town, forming on the whole a community of almost
reckless enterprise. It was at such a time and in the midst of such a
people that young Prentiss had made his selection of a home, and a
field for the future exercise of his professional abilities.
Young, ardent, and ambitious, he sought to rival his seniors at the
Bar. Unwilling to wait on time, he aspired to leap at once to this
equality. It was the daring of genius, and of a genius which counted as
only a stimulant the obstacles intervening. To grapple with giants,
such as he found in Guion, Yerger, Sharkey, McNutt, and Lake, would
have intimidated a less bold and daring mind; but Prentiss courted the
conflict _con amore_, and applying all his herculean powers with the
vigor of youth and the ardency of enterprise, he soon found himself
quite equal to any competitor.
When an infant, a fever settled in his leg, causing it to wither from
the knee to the foot, and doomed him through life to lameness. Like
Byron, he was sensitive upon the subject of this physical defect. It
was a serious obstacle to his locomotion, and in speaking compelled a
sameness of position injurious to the effect of his oratory. Scarcely
had two years elapsed from the time of his admission to the Bar before
his fame as a lawyer and advocate was filling the State. His business
had increased to such an extent as to require his undivided attention,
as he was employed in almost every important suit in that section of
the State. His qualities of heart were as conspicuous as those of his
brain, which had endeared him to the people of Vicksburg perhaps more
than any other citizen. This social and professional popularity caused
him to be elected to the Legislature of the State. He belonged to the
Whig party, which was largely in the minority in the Legislature, but
was powerful in talent.
Before this time, Colonel Adam L. Bingaman, of Adams County, had been
the acknowledged leader of this party. He was a man of rare
qualifications for a popular leader--highly gifted by nature in mind
and personal appearance, which was most splendid and commanding, with a
polished education and fascinating manners, and by nature an orator.
Added to these advantages, he was a native of the State, the
representative of great wealth, and with extensive family influence.
These two met as friends personally and politically in the Legislature.
Prentiss--though known as a great lawyer and a powerful advocate at the
Bar--had until now taken but little part in politics. None knew of his
proficiency as a politician or as a popular political orator, and, long
accustomed to the eloquence and the debating abilities of Bingaman, the
lead was accorded to him as usual. Party excitement was fierce, and
involved every one. The Democracy, armed with numbers and men of great
abilities, felt secure in their position. They had no fears that any
powers possessed by any man or set of men could operate a change in
public opinion dangerous to their supremacy in the State.
Socially, Prentiss knew no party distinction. With all who were
gentlemen he mingled, not as a partisan, but as a man. The kindness of
his nature won upon all equally, and it was soon discovered that a
personal favor to Prentiss would sometimes override party allegiance.
His personal friends were all gentlemen, and once within the magic
influence of his social circle was enough to bind him to the heart of
every one. The session had made but little progress before his powers
as an orator were beginning to be felt.
During an exciting debate, in which Bingaman had, as usual, taken the
lead, when all the ablest of the Democracy had, as they supposed,
exhausted the argument and demolished the position of their
adversaries, and the House seemed impatient for the question, Prentiss
rose, and claimed the attention of the chair. His clear and succinct
statement of the pending question put a new phase upon it, and the
House seemed surprised.
He proceeded then to debate the question; and very soon he was in
_medias res_, and his bold and lucid argument won the attention of
every one. The position of the Democracy was dissected to the
separation of every fibre; its character and future effects denounced
and exposed in a strain of invective eloquence which thrilled to every
heart. Turning from this to the national policy of the Democracy, then
in power, and which the measure under consideration was intended to aid
and sustain, his powers seemed to expand with the magnitude of the
subject, as he went on to analyze the policy and the measures of the
Government, and to demonstrate the disastrous consequences which must
follow these remotely, if not immediately, corrupting, undermining, and
ultimately destroying the Constitution, and, of consequence, the
Government. He spoke for three hours; his peroration was so grandly
eloquent as to bring down the House and galleries in a round of
applause.
From that day forward, Prentiss was the great man of the House and of
the State. A fire in a prairie never spread or ran faster than his
fame; it was on every tongue, in every newspaper. Such fame from one
speech had never been won by any man in America, save Patrick Henry.
Single-speech Hamilton, of the British Parliament, astonished England;
but he was never afterward heard of, and is known to this day as
"single-speech Hamilton." As with Henry, this was but the beginning of
a fame which was to grow and expand into giant proportions. Prentiss
was now a national man. Soon after this, he visited Boston and New York
during an exciting political campaign. Throughout the North, wherever
he appeared and spoke, he bore the palm from every rival.
The speech of Prentiss in Faneuil Hall will long be remembered as
perhaps the finest specimen of oratory ever listened to in that
venerable hall. It was at the time said by the men of the North to
surpass the best efforts of Fisher Ames. Subsequently he spoke in New
York, and for three hours held spell-bound an immense audience.
The writer was informed by a venerable judge, of New Jersey, that he
had never believed any man possessed such powers of oratory as to
interest him and chain his attention for that length of time. Hearing
this young man from the wilds of Mississippi could do so, he embraced
the first opportunity of hearing him. When he reached the place, he
found the assemblage very great, and with difficulty he succeeded in
reaching a point where he might hear well. He was unable to procure a
seat, and was compelled to stand, thoroughly jammed by the crowd. He
took out his watch to time him, as he commenced, and noting the minute,
he essayed to replace his watch: something said arrested his attention
and his hands from their work of putting the watch in its fob.
"There was something, sir, in his eye," said he, "which startled me,
and then the words came bubbling up spontaneously as spring water, so
full of power, so intensely brilliant, and his figures so bold,
original, and illustrating, and the one following the other in such
quick succession; the flights of imagination, so new, so eloquent, and
so heart-searching--that I found it impossible to take my eyes from his
face, or my ears from drinking in every word. At one time, so intense
were my feelings under the effect of his words and the powerful
impression they were making on my mind, that I thought I should faint.
I forgot the presence of the crowd, and, though seventy years of age,
felt no fatigue from my standing position. In truth, sir, I was
unconscious of the time--equally so of the presence of any one but the
speaker. I perceived that his physical man was failing under his
effort, and so intense was my sympathy that I found myself breathing
rapidly and painfully; and yet, when he exclaimed, 'My powers fail!'
and sank into his seat completely exhausted, I regretted the necessity
which compelled him to stop. It was not until then that I found my hand
still holding my watch at the opening of its pocket, where, in my
excitement, I had forgotten to deposit it. I looked, and I had been
standing unmoved in the same position and intently listening for three
hours and fifteen minutes. Near me stood one old as myself--a friend, a
neighbor, and a minister of the gospel; he was livid with excitement,
and his lips trembled as he said to me: 'Will you ever doubt again that
God inspires man?'"
Notwithstanding the immense Democratic majority in the State, the Whigs
determined to run Prentiss for Congress: the election, at that time,
was by general ticket, and there were two members to be elected: the
Whig nomination was Prentiss and Wood; the Democratic, Claiborne and
Gholson.
Claiborne was a native of the State, and the son of General Ferdinand
Claiborne, a young man of very superior abilities, and at the time a
member of Congress. McNutt was the Democratic candidate for Governor.
The campaign was a most animated one, and Prentiss addressed the people
in very nearly every county in the State; the people, _en masse_,
flocked to hear him, and his name was in every mouth. The Democratic
nominees did not attempt to meet him on the stump. His march through
the State was over the heads of the people, hundreds following him from
county to county in his ovation. McNutt alone attempted to meet him and
speak with him, and he only once. McNutt was a Virginian, and was a man
of stupendous abilities; he was a lawyer by profession, and was
Governor of the State. Next to Poindexter, he was the ablest man who
ever filled the chair. Unfortunately, like most of the young and
talented of that day in the West, he was too much addicted to the
intoxicating bowl. Upon the only meeting of these, Prentiss and McNutt,
the latter, in his speech, urged as a reason for the rejection or
defeat of the former his dissipated habits, admitted his great
abilities, his masterly genius, pronounced him the first man of the age
intellectually, but deplored his habits, which were rendering him
useless, with all his genius, learning, and eloquence.
Prentiss, in reply, said: "My fellow-citizens, you have heard the
charge against my morals, sagely, and, I had almost said, soberly made
by the gentleman, the Democratic nominee for the chief executive office
of this State: had I said this, it would have been what the lawyers
term a misnomer. It would be impossible for him to do or say anything
soberly, for he has been drunk ten years; not yesterday, or last week,
in a frolic, or, socially, with the good fellows, his friends, at the
genial and generous board--but at home, and by himself and demijohn;
not upon the rich wines of the Rhine or the Rhone, the Saone or the
Guadalquivir; not with high-spirited or high-witted men, whose souls,
when mellowed with glorious wine, leap from their lips sublimated in
words swollen with wit, or thought brilliant and dazzling as the blood
of the grape inspiring them--no; but by himself: selfish and apart from
witty men, or ennobling spirits, in the secret seclusion of a dirty
little back-room, and on corn-whiskey!--these only, communing in
affectionate brotherhood, the son of Virginia and the spirits of old
Kentucky! Why, fellow--citizens, as the Governor of the State, he
refused to sign the gallon-law until he had tested, by experiment, that
a gallon would do him all day!
"Now I will admit, fellow-citizens, that sometimes, when in the
enjoyment of social communion with gentlemen, I am made merry with
these, and the rich wines of glorious France. It is then I enjoy the
romance of life. Imagination, stimulated with the juice of the grape,
gave to the world the Song of Solomon, and the Psalms of that old poet
of the Lord--glorious old David.
"The immortal verse of wandering old Homer, the blind son of Scio's
isle, was the inspiration of Samian wine; and good old Noah, too, would
have sung some good and merry song, from the inspiration of the juice
of the vine he planted, but having to wait so long, his thirst, like
the Democratic nominee's here, became so great, that he was tempted to
drink too deeply, and got too drunk to sing; and this, I fancy, is the
true reason why this distinguished gentleman never sings.
"Perhaps there is no music in his soul. The glug-glug-glug of his jug,
as he tilts and pours from its reluctant mouth the corn-juice so loved
of his soul, is all the music dear to his ear, unless it be the same
glug-glug-glug as it disappears down his capacious throat. Now,
fellow-citizens, during this ardent campaign, which has been so
fatiguing, I have only been drunk once. Over in Simpson County I was
compelled to sleep in the same bed with this distinguished
nominee--this delight of the Democracy--this wonderful exponent of the
principles and practices of the unwashed Democracy--and in the morning
I found myself drunk on corn-whiskey. I had lain too close to this
soaked mass of Democracy, and was drunk from absorption."
This was more than the Governor could stand, and, amidst the shouts and
laughter of the assembled multitude, he left the stand, and declined to
meet again, before the people, the young Ajax Telemon of the Whig
party.
The memory of that campaign will probably never be forgotten in
Mississippi. Mothers, in stories of Prentiss, tell it now to their
children, and it and he have become a tradition of the early days of
Mississippi. The election terminated in the choice of Prentiss and
Wood, by a small majority; but the certificate was given, through the
basest fraud, to Claiborne and Gholson.
This was contested before the House of Representatives in Congress
assembled, and the contestants permitted to be heard on the floor of
the House. It was here, in the presence of the assembled wisdom of the
nation, Prentiss was to sustain the reputation which had preceded him,
and gloriously did he do it. When he rose to commence his speech, all
was silent, and every face expressed deep and excited expectation. The
unfortunate deformity of his leg was forgotten, in viewing the noble
contour of his head and face. Young, and for the first time in such a
presence--standing there the impersonation of the State of Mississippi,
demanding justice for her at the hands of the nation--he seemed
conscious of the responsibility, and confident of his power to sustain
this. There was little preliminary in his remarks opening the matter.
He went at once, and as a strong man conscious of the right, to the
core. He demonstrated, beyond a doubt, his election, and proceeded in a
strain of burning invective to expose the fraud of the returning
officer, who had shamefully disregarded the popular voice, and
shamelessly violated the law he was sworn to obey, in giving the
certificate to his defeated competitors. Never did the corruption of
party receive so severe an exposition, or a more withering rebuke, than
in this speech.
Very soon after he commenced, the Senate chamber was deserted, and the
Vice-President and Secretary were left alone. Webster, Benton, Calhoun,
Clay, Wright, and Evans came in and ranged themselves near him. Every
space large enough, in the chamber, lobby, and galleries, was filled
with a listener, and all were still and unmoving, however painful their
position, until the enunciation of the last word of that wonderful
oration. The speech occupied two hours and forty minutes, and the
peroration was thrilling. When exhausted, and closing, he lifted his
eyes to the national flag, floating above the Speaker's chair, and
said, in an almost exhausted voice, "If, Mr. Speaker, in obedience to
the necessities and corrupt behest of party, you are determined to
wrest from Mississippi her rights as a sister, and coequal in this
union of States, and turn from their seats her representatives
constitutionally chosen, and place in their stead the repudiated of her
people, strike from the flag which waves above you the star which
represents her there; but leave the stripes, apt emblem of your
iniquity and her degradation."
An adjournment was immediately moved; the painful excitement was
relieved, the spell was broken, and from every side, and from every
party, came men to congratulate him. Webster was the first to stretch
forth his hand, and with more animation than was his wont, said, in his
deep, sonorous tones, "New England claims her own, and is proud of her
son."
The House, notwithstanding the demonstrative proof, and its enforcement
by the powerful and unanswerable argument of Prentiss, sent the
election back to the State, to be determined by a new election. In
this, Prentiss and Wood were triumphantly elected. He was not again a
candidate, retiring for the time from politics, and giving his
undivided attention to his profession.
It was always a matter of astonishment, to all who could never make of
a political enemy a personal friend, why it was that Prentiss, so
bitter in his political denunciations of political partisans, and so
bitter a partisan, should yet, among the opposition, have so many warm
admirers and most devoted friends. His nature was sensitive, generous,
and confiding. There was no malice festering in his heart, and in his
opposition, he was only so to the politics, not the personal qualities
of the man. By these he judged of the man, and the character of these
regulated his conduct toward him. He did not pass through life without
enemies. The man to whom this is possible is one of no positive points
in his character, no strength of will, no fixity of purpose, and of but
little intellect. Such men never occupy the public attention--are
altogether negative, as well in action as in mind. The enemies of
Prentiss were such from envy, or political hatred. His great abilities,
when brought in contact with those suing for popular favor, so
shrivelled and dwarfed them as to inspire only fear and hatred. But men
of this character were scarce in that day in Mississippi. Such was the
tone of society, and such the education of her sons, that traits so
dishonorable rendered odious the man manifesting them, and those of
talent and education emigrating to the country soon caught this spirit
as by inoculation. If there were any who were influenced by such base
and degrading motives, and who felt these a part of their nature, they
most generally could command policy enough to conceal them.
No community is long in discovering the genuine from the counterfeit
character. It did not require months to learn all the heart, all the
nature of Prentiss. Too frequently are great abilities coupled with a
mean spirit, and transcendent genius underlaid with a low, grovelling
nature; but these may be known by the peculiar form or development of
the cranium. The high coronal developments discover the intense moral
organization: the lofty and expansive forehead, the steady, unblenching
eye, and the easy self-possession of manner are all indications of high
moral organization, and the possession of a soul superior to envy,
malice, and vindictive hatred, and one to which little meannesses are
impossible. Such a head and such a soul had S.S. Prentiss. His whole
character was in his face, and so legible that the most illiterate
could read it. This won to him like natures, and all such who knew him
were instinctively his friends.
Judge Wilkinson was such a man, and though as ardently Democratic as
Prentiss was Whig, and as uncompromising in his principles, yet these
two were friends in the loftiest sense of the term. Judge Wilkinson had
a difficulty with a tailor in Louisville, Kentucky, who attempted an
imposition upon him to which he would not submit. A quarrel ensued, and
the knight of the needle and shears determined on revenge. Collecting
about him his ready associates, they went to the hotel where Wilkinson
lodged, and waylaid him at the door between the dining-parlor and the
reception-room, and attacked him on his coming in from supper. In the
rencontre three of the assailants were killed, and the remainder of the
gang fled. Immediately surrendering himself, he was incarcerated and
held for trial: although assaulted with murderous intent, and acting
clearly in self-defence, he was denied bail. He was a stranger, and the
prejudices of the court and the people of Louisville were so manifest
that he demanded and obtained a change of venire.
The trial came off at Harrodsburg. Prentiss, learning the facts and the
situation of his friend, volunteered immediately to defend him in
court, and to befriend him in any manner possible to him. The
celebrated Ben Hardin was employed to assist in the prosecution. The
eyes of all Mississippi and Kentucky were turned to Harrodsburg when
this trial commenced. Others volunteered--and among these was John
Rowan--to assist in the defence. But the case for Wilkinson was
conducted exclusively by Prentiss. It continued for some days. John
Rowan--so celebrated in the State for his talents and great legal
learning, as well as for his transcendent abilities as an advocate--sat
by, and trusted all to Prentiss.
There were many sparrings in the course of the trial between Hardin and
Prentiss upon points in the law of evidence, and as to the
admissibility or rejection of testimony, as also upon many points of
the criminal law of England, whether changed or not by statutory
provisions of the State.
In one of these, Rowan handed an open authority to Prentiss, and was
taunted by Hardin for the act, by saying: "Give your friend all the aid
you can: he needs it."
"I only preserved the book open at the page where Mr. Prentiss had
marked the law," said Rowan: "he requires no aid from me, brother
Hardin. With all your learning and experience, he is more than a match
for you."
This Hardin was not long in discovering, and especially did he feel it
when Prentiss came to reply to his address to the jury. So long
accustomed to defy competition as a criminal lawyer, Hardin was not
only surprised at the tact and masterly talent displayed by his
adversary, but he was annoyed, and felt that to maintain his prestige
as the great criminal lawyer of Kentucky, he must put forth all his
powers. He had done so; and in his summing up before the jury he seemed
more than himself. When he had concluded there were many who deemed
conviction sure.
Prentiss followed, and in his grandest manner tore to tatters every
argument and every position advanced and assumed by Hardin. Towering in
the majesty of his genius in one of those transcendent flights of
imagination so peculiar to him, when his illustrations in figures
followed each other in such quick and constant succession as to seem
inexhaustible, he turned suddenly upon Hardin, and, stooping his face
until it almost touched that of the stern old Kentuckian, he hissed
forth: "Dare you, sir, ask a verdict of such a jury as is here sitting
upon this testimony?--you, sir, who under the verdict of nature must
soon appear before the awful bar to which you now strive prematurely to
consign this noble, this gallant young man! Should you succeed, you
must meet him there. Could you, in the presence of Almighty God--He who
knows the inmost thoughts--justify your work of to-day? His mandate is
not to the gibbet. Eternal Justice dictates there, whose decrees are
eternal. Do you think of this? Do you defy it? If not--if you invoke
it, do it through your acts toward your fellow-man. Have you to-day
done unto this man as you would he should do unto you? I pause for a
reply--none. Then shudder and repent, for the record even now is making
up against you in that high court from which there is no appeal. You,
gentlemen of the jury, are no hired advocates: you are not laboring for
blood-money. Though your responsibility to your God is equal to his,
you will not go to the bar of your Creator with blood--guiltless
blood--upon your consciences. You will not, as he will, in that awful
presence, on that eventful day, look around you for the accusing spirit
of him whom you consigned to the gibbet with a consciousness of his
innocence of murder. How will it be with you? (turning again to
Hardin.) Ah! how will it be with you? Still silent. Despite the
hardness of his features, mercy like a halo sweeps over them, and
speaks to you, gentlemen, eloquently: 'Acquit the accused!' Look over
yonder, gentlemen: within these walls is one awaiting your verdict in
tearless agony--she who but for this untoward event would now have been
happy as his bride: she who has cheered him in his prison-cell daily
with her presence and lovely soul! Hers, not his fate, is in your
hands. To him death is nothing: the brave defy death--the good fear it
not; then why should he fear? But she! O God! it is a fearful thing to
crush to death with agony the young, hopeful, and loving heart of
virtuous woman. His death is only terrible in her future. Go with her,
gentlemen, through life; contemplate the wan features of slow decay:
see in these the one eternal, harrowing thought; list to the sigh which
rives the heart; watch the tear which falls in secret; see her sink
into the grave; then turn away, look up into heaven, and from your
heart say: 'O God! I did it.' You will not; you cannot; you dare not."
Hardin's conclusion was tame, and without effect; the demonstrations on
the part of the jury dispirited him, and his concluding speech had none
of the power of his opening. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty,
without hesitation. Wilkinson was immediately discharged, and in
company with his friends was repairing to the hotel, when, in the
warmth of his emotion, he said, laying his hand on the shoulder of
Prentiss: "How shall I pay you, my friend, for this great service you
have done me?"
"By never mentioning pay again," was the prompt and decisive reply.