Semi-weekly Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1851-1852, 1851-10-28
TdE GOVERNOR AND TaE WIDOW.
BY PRESIDENT LoNGsTREET.

Ho who would give you even tolerable
description of the deformity OF lntemprrance,
must conduct you from the hymenial altar OF
widows, to the death-chambprs and death glib.
bets of their husbands He must paint you the
young and beautious bride, as she gave her
hand and heart, and her patrimony, to one Of
those fancied images of perfection. He must
conduct you to her new home stead, for which
she forsook the endearments OF her childhoods
home, her fathers care, and her mothers heav'
enly n.ini>tratons. He must deIict the alai ms
which came laundering into the sanctuary OF
her affections. when she received the first inti.
nation that she WAS likely to hecome the drunk
ards wife, and the drunkards victim, He must
touch with delicate hand. the gathering eclipse
as it came over the sun light of her counte-
nance, her sinking spirits, her silent musings,
her heavy sighs, trickling tears, her silent pray
ers. He must exhibit the more vehement tlirOes
of her tortured bosom, rs she saw, from day to
day, her gloomy apprehensions confirmed her
eloquent pleadings by their former loves, their
once happy days, her weakness, dependence,
his talents, his honor. their common offspring,
the ret,butions of eternity-every sentence
sanctfed by love, and baptized with holy tears.
He must expose her conflicting emotions, as
she saw first her luxuries, then her comforts,
then her necessaries, to GO the grogshop; and her
struggles in parting, one by one, with her trim.
kets, her ornaments, her costly jewels, endear-
ed tokens of friendship and parental love, to
appease the cries of her hungry children. lie
must bring you to the closing sceue, when hy
her husbands dying bed-bed did say?-
n,llet of straw or rags she listened to his ra-
wings in deirium tremens, until death stilled lis
writings, and sihed his blasphen"us execra
tious. The faithful deneator must do all this;
and then he will have but half sketched the PIC.
ture of misery to which some of these thou
sands of widows have been exposed.
He must next turn his pencil to those tens
of thousands Of orphans, exhibit before yon the
infant Newtons, Marshalls, Halls, Nesleys
Chalmers, Ciceros, Burks, Henrys, Washing
tons, Wellingtons and Jacksons among them
whose stupendous intellecls, bereft of parental
care, and robbed Of the means Of culture, were
lost to their country, and forever lost-lost
did say? Tar worse than that turned to eat
ing ulcers upon the body polite; transformed
to sharpers, black. legs, cheats, swindlerS, rob
bers. assassins. He must show the softer sex
of the throng-t the Mores, the Edgcwortts, the
Hemauses, driven from their legitimate sphere,
to the factory, the kitchen, the brothel. He
must trace on the consequences OF the pe'ver-
sions. from generation to generatIon-show you
drunkards begetting drunkards, poverty pre- du-
cling Ioverty, ignorance producing ignorance,
and crime producing crime, Il rough successive
ares When he shall have done all this, he
will have presented you but poor picture of
the inebriate's orphanage.
Turning, then. to the criminals, he must trace
their footsteps from the first to the last offence
show the plundered poor, the beguiled inno-
cents, the ensnared youth, the rihed dwellings,
the fired cities. the butchered worthless, the lrnn-
tic bankrupt, the raving madman, the desperate
suicide, on the one hand and the long pursuit,
the arrest, the prison scene,-the trial and con-
demnation of the authors of the mischief, on
the other. He must exhibit to you whole fam.
lilies going to ruin, with the criminal and the
victim of crime; and must give the precise
measure of suffering which every member en-.
dured. He must carry you thr"ugh the trial
scene--the sleepless anxiety OF fathers, moth.
ers, sisters, and brothers, for many long mo. ..ths
the toll of preparation, diverted from pro-
ductive channels; the heavy expenses abstract.
ed from INDECENT families the tumut of feel
ing. as the case went from the advocate TO the
Jury; and the thunder stroke as they passed it
to the judge, closed up with the word " gully" :"
Then the strong appeals to the pardoaing pow
r; and, lastly, the tearing of hearts at the ex-
ecution of the sentence.
| witnessed once scene which comes in
place here During the commencement exer-
cises at Emory College, upon one OCCASION
the Governor of the State of Georgia, and his
lady with goody number of other friends,
were staying with me. All were light hearted
cheerful aud happy, when female form, plain
ly but neatly attired, entered my gate, and ad-
van, ed to my door. Ireceived her, and, upon
her request to see the Governor, conducted
her to his room.
"Governor," said she, 7" | am the mother Of
the man who i. to be executed, four day hence,
at Columbus, for murder. Hearing Of his
septence in Maryland, where live, l hastened