The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1842-02-19

the second for he does mean to be precise in re
gard to dates" And YET, although he had memo
ry for dates he undertakes to give from memory alone
not only the general tenor and effect of my remarks
but a syllabus Of my lohole argument! Mr.. Harrison
knows the fate of witness who proves too much If
this private conversation, shame to him for hav
ing used ii ifa public one how does il happen that
no other man be found who heard it j?
But when did this occur? He is sure it occurred
in the spring of the year preceding the conversation
board the steamboat, and he thinks in the first
second year of Mr. Van Burens Administration
Now that conversation is said to have occurred while
Judge Barbour on his way to hold court in Nor
folk he then the District Judge of Eastern Vir-
ginia Judge Barbour was appointed to the Bench Of
the Supreme Court in March, 1886, so that the con-
versation alluded to, if held at ALL must have been
held in the fall of 1885. Mr. Van Buren, was inau-
gurated in March, 1887, and consequently the con-
versation could not have been held either in the first
second year of his Administration. This fact
proves either that such conversation ever held
at all, or that Mr.. Harrison, whose memory cannot
come within two or three years of the right date in
period of little than six, is not to be relied on
when he undertakes to give, from memory alone the
syllabus Oft long argument six months more remote
in date
As to the harangue on the banks of James river it
is too ridiculous for commentary The young gentle
men educated at William and Mary College viii res
pond to this charge in all parts of Virginia See the
statements of Messrs Crump, Jones, w. Peachy, and
Speed
There yet remains the conversation Gin some pr-
vate conveyance" between York and williamsburg
conveyance was carriage, sent by Col. McCandIish
to York for my use, and that understanding that Mr.
Harrison was there, without conveyance, and anx-
ous to go to Williamsburg, sought him out and in
vited him to take seat with This is the fact as
he we'll knows. He aoas emphatically mn guest No
such conversation he mentions held during at
ride but whatever the conversation was, what are
We TO think of the which, unasked and without any
fair pretence, he volunteered to make of it1 MI
Botts in his first card in the lntegencer says that
lfit can be established by even plausible evidence"
that man is "a retailer of private Conversations he
is ready TO "adnit that it is just for his excom-
municatlon from the society Of gentlemen" Nh
Harrison is the witness against himself and upon his
own evidence hand him to Mr. Bolts for judg-
ment.
The next witness is Mr.. Garter M Braxton. He
into this business unlimited and he could not re-
sonably complain if he should receive an intruder's
treatment. However, prefer to submit any question
of this sort, in which he and concerned to the
gentlemen Of Lower Virginia, where are both
pery aoeN kno,on. His testimony is quite too indei-
mite, to time place. and circumstances rise to the
dignity of evidence, and indeed seems to have been
thrown in only make-weght. AS he charges me
with having reclaimed, in the streets of populous
town, doctrine and opinions startling to all who
heard them am surprised that other witnesses besides
himself have not been found to say what they were
Let his statement 60 for what it is worth.
The remaining witness is Mr.. Edward w. John
ston cannot repIess my astonishment at the state
ment he has given No man living has less right than
himself to speak of my political opinions. With him.
at least, have had no intercourse correspond
ence from which he could derive the least information
upon the subject. AS to his statement that was not
selected writer for the Southern Review because
it was " rumored" among my close friends in South
Carolina that went beyond notification, and had de-
termined to devote my future life the cause Of dis
union he have been the only person who ever
heard such rumor 1t could not, imagine, have
been generally credited, since was actually selected
not merely writer, but the sole editor of that
very Review Those who feel any curiosity upon
the subject may the prospectus, with my to it,
by applying to any connected with the late firm of
VIM. w Moore g. Co. of this city. In regard to
my :" close friends" and my connexion with the NULL
ers Of South Carolina, and all that he has built upon
that supposilion it is without the shadow of founda
ton. Some of those nuifers, leaders and prominent
actors in the scene now here in the two Houses
of Congress- and they all concur in affirming that
Mr. Johnston has been quite too hasty Ito say nothing
of W in all that he has stated touching my sup
posed connection with them. had no " close friends
among them, and never had the least communication
with any of them. AS it is this part of Mr.. Bolts
publication which gives it all its real Importance
shall leave Mr.. Johnston to be disposed of by the hon
orable men whom he has assailed IN order to reach
particularly invite attention to the correspondence
(Appendix B. between myself and Messrs. Calhoun,
Preston, w. Thompson, Minister to Mexico
Rhett, Caldwell, W. Butler, S. H. Buter,+ Pickt MS
Holmes, and Sumter, and to the letter Of the Hon
R. M. Saunders touching the matter. | per-
ceive that Mr. Johnston has found necessary to ex
plain his own testimony. In the Independent of the
18th umo he says:
&C. He never said that he alw avs knew Mr. Upshur
to be open and aboveboard in his advocacy of disso
luton of the Union He believed him to be in favor
of dissolution but that belief stated in the letter
he addressed to Mr. Bolts to be matter of opinion and
inference from facts which there detailed"
Indeed Then my political principles are to be de-
termined by the opinions and differences" of Mr. Edw.
w. Johnston And the beauty of the thing is, that
the "facts" upon which these "opnions and infer
encts" founded, turn out to be facts at all
! am next assailed upon what are supposed to be
the corrupt and disorganzing doctrines Of certain
says, under the title of Revolution in Disguise"--
AS Mr.. Edmund Ruffin, of Petersburg, has publicly
claimed the authorship of those essays, leave to him
the task of defending them This is proof, among
many, of the rashness of Mr. Boris in making grave
charges upon too slight inquiry into the truth of the
supposed facts on which he rests them.
Such are the proofs in this l called on
to the charge of having avowed disunion
timents in conversation with Mr.. Boris at parti-
cular time; and the only witness who pretends to
prove it is my personal enemy, with embittered pre-
JUDGES against me and my opinions, and who acknow-
lodges that he did not hear one-haf that passed
This ground is not adhered to, and other witnesses
sail me upon all the passages of my past life Every
unweighed expression, every hasty and unguarded
word caught up at random, and without the context
which would explain it, has been hunted up; and
how much has it shown? | have been condemned
upon the writings of another man, while my own,
acknowledged and known to be mine, and in which
my opinions have been published and again,
have been left unnoticed cannot but regard it as
wonderful, that, considering the peculiar nature of
my principles, which exposes them to misconstruc-
ton considering the freedom with which they have
been always expressed, nay, the hot zeal with which
am charged with having obtruded them out of sea-
son, upon unwilling hearers they have yet been so
distinctly laid down all occasions that among the
thousands who have heard them fully explained,
Mr.. Harrison alone has been able to misunderstood
them.
In life Of ftfy-two wears half Of which has been