The Planters' banner. [volume] (Franklin, Attakapas Co., Lou.) 1849-1872, 1851-10-25

I0IloWS:
He said he was too feeble from recent
illness to follow the gentleman through
the whole of his lengthy and discursive
address. He thanked his fellow-citizens
for their kind permission and courteous
invitation to him TO reply to Mr.. Morse
in the absence of his friend Judge
Moore, of which he availed himself the
more readily, inasmuch as during the
last congressional canvass the friends
ofthe honorable gentleman we're never
at all backward in joining issue with
him (Mr. o. before the people and con-
testing with him, in public discussion,
in the absence of his opponent, (Mr.
Morse) and on his behalf, those ques-
tions of national policy upon which he
had placed himself before the voters of
the district as candidate for their suf-
frages. Guns of all calibres. heavy
metal and light. were brought to bear
upon him. Of this he did not com
pIain--it was all right In an elective
government like ours--a democratic
government free and unrestrained
public discussion of political affairs
was. he thought, essentially necessary
to the proper and enlightened exercise
of the elective franchise. All men do
not read the public journals, and those
who do often receive from them only a
one-sided and partizan view of the
issues that may be before the country
When candidate is brought up before
the people, face to face, and called on
to testify to the faith that is in him. or
to justify his past acts and votes. there
is nd room for equivocation he is as it
were on his trial before Jury of his
countrymen, and the truth must and
will out however much it may be
sought to be evaded Shenstone has
somewhere said that by the collision of
minds truth and science are developed.
This remark is especially applicable to
political affairs He would here OBJ
serve, that in regard TO many matters
to which he would call the attention of
the meeting, there could be no party
issue between the honorable gentleman
and himself, for in reference to some of
them the gentleman occupied position
directly antagonistical to his own party.
and in regard to others had opposed
himself to the views and votes of some
OF the greatest. wisest and purest men
of his party. He would begin with the
great question of the Union. which
came home to the hearts of all patriotic
Americans. On this question he did
not considered the gentleman sound.
whether he judged him by his course
in Congress on the subject of the Com
promise, or by what had fallen from
his lips to-day, evidencing, as both had
done, his determined and most bitter
hostility to the series of measures
each and all-which the Congress of
the United States had adopted in their
wisdom, to give peace to our distracted
country, and 10 preserve from threaten
ed disruption this great and glorious
Union. He repeated that in his judg-
ment the gentleman was assailable
upon the Union question.
The gentleman had said that he stood
by all his votes and speeches-that he
had nothing to explain or to extenuate
And yet every one here must have per-
ceived how he had labored to explain
and justify his votes on the Compro-
mise, as if fully conscious. as he doubt
less was. that on this subject the most
are needed, and indeed
they were. Here was, perhaps, the
worst part of the gentleman's case
1t was related in ancient story, that
the hero immortalized in verse
by the greatest of poets, the blind bard
Of Greece, was rendered invulnerabie
BY being plunged by his mother into
the river Styx, save in his heel, BY
which she held him and which was not
immersed in the life-giving stream
and that it was there he received his
mortal wound from the death-bearing
arrow of Paris. So he apprehended it
was with his honorable friend from ST.
Martin. He had been immersed in the
living waters of democracy, and had
been rendered, as many past contest
had proved, alike iuvalnerable and in
But upon this Union question
the gentleman had net received the true
democratic baptism; upon this question
ne was most vulnerable-and here our
of the 4th district will probably |
receive his political death wound. Mr. |
Ogden said that when he looked TO his
native State of South Carolina, the Hot
,pur of the South, as she had been |
the State in which all these Sc
,ession and disunion doctrines, that |
lave become so rife in the land, had |
originated, and saw her compelled by |
he force of public opinion TO recede
rom the position into which her ultra
Southern-Rights politicians had been
rying with apparent success to force
ler-when he heard the counsels given
o her people by such men as Cheves,
Hamilton, Poinsett, Butler,
md others, who are opposed to seces-
he looked across to our
lister State of Mississippi, and saw
here the gallant Quitman, her favorite
on. whom she delighted TO honor, the
and upright statesman and
urisi. and distinguished soldier, "sdns
eur ct sans rsproehe,n driven from the
ield in the now pending gubernatorial
anvass by the unmistakable express
ions of opinion by his fellow-citizens in
avor of the Union-when he saw in
tennessee the defeat on the same ques-
ion of Gen. Trousdale, another mar of
a