The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-12-08

WASHINGTON CITY.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1851.


them, and force himself into full communion
with the Democratic party, or lay down plat
form for another. If anything were needed to
show, in its true coors the real character of this
desperate political gambler--the very breath of
whose political existence has been "agtation,"
onthe stump at home, or in the Senate here
this last move of his, stutifying his whole recent
course, and his noisy professions of patriotism
would suffice to stamp him demagogue and agi.
tator
No man in this country has been more noisily
abusive of agitation" and "agitators" as he
termed the cause and its champions which he t
first aided, then abandoned and betrayed. No
man mouthed more copiously about the necessity
of putting down agitation, and restoring peace
to the party and the country. No man insisted
more strenuously that the acts of the last SEES
sion should be a inality in their iotality" TO
use the current cant of the day.) And yet this
man, after agitating all summer in Mississippi
stirring up strife, dissension, and bitterness
among brethren, wherever he went-this man,
we say, returns to Congress for twenty DAYS
only and in the teeth of all his declarations and
professions, true to his nature, commences, at
once, to disturb the short truce which even the
more rabid Aboltionists had expressed their will
lingness to grant. And to cap the climax of his
undaunted effrontery renews the old war under
the pretext of establishing permanent peace
convinced by his own personal experience, how
far spurious professions of patriotic purpose can
cover over and conceal the real motives and the
real man. Many an animal, since the DAYS of
EsoP, has donned the lions hide, and many a
public performer played the lions part but
sooner or later the bray of the animal, and the
buffoonery of the actor, have shown the former
to belong to the long cared race, and the latter
to be "no lion, but only Snug the joiner
Such has hitherto been the case and another
similar instance has been added within the last
few days, as the records of Congress show.
One short week since, HENRY S. FooTE returned
to Washington, flushed 18th his victory in Mis-.
sssiPpi over his former principles and former
frends-a victory, under the circumstances
more humiliating than defeat, because owing
to the accident of the illness of his adversary,
and the popularity of the cause of which his
new friends unwillingy accepted him as the ex
ponent. lie came here to glorify, to strut and
crow over his triumph and to fasten himself
again as an incubus on the party of which he still
claims to be member. Last, but not least, the
senator may have had an eye to his mileage
metal most attractive to patriots such as he
But alas as the poet Mr. F. is fond of quoting
Poetry) observes, " the schemes of mice" and
mouse-lke men, too often fail in this uncertain
world of ours
The senator awakes from his visions and
dreams of gratifed malice, and successful STRAIT.
egg, to find himself an estray-a waf, unclaimed
by either of the old parties, and in lean and
Powerless minority thing his soul abhors
as nature abhors vacuum. From the heights
of exultation dropped at once into the depths OF
despair-the resolutions which were to admit
himself and friends into Democratic ranks, anc
at the same time rule out those whom he hated
because he feared, repudiated and rejected, no
modic throes and contortions are ptiable to be
hod-his plot so shallow-his professions 81
much at war with his acts--that even his quon
dam euogist, the Union, has TO put forth
hesitatng disclaimer-half apoogetic half whin
ing, in relation to the supposed privity of il
editor in the resolution plot. II never weare,
descanting on the man and his works while sue
cess apparently crowned them but things weal
another face at present-non- committalism is
the cue now; and the senator, turning TO his aide
may well exclaim, in view of Fridays editorial,
Ell Tu Brmei' Mr.. FooTE is abandoned to his
fate by his former trunpeters-for /" principles
not men"-printing contracts, not personal
friendships, are the bellows that
Make the sounding organs blow"
in these degenerate days-when PrLADEs,
with his eye on the spoils, leaves his Orestes in
the lurch. What, then, was left to Mr.. FoorE
but to play this last card of his, and TO make as
much capital as possible out of the few remain
ing days of his congressional existence No
thing else--and hence we see the feverish rest.
iessness, the eager anxiety to turn every thing to
account-to force his way into his old party, or
acting as an architect of ruin, dsmember and
divide it by the application of test, which that
party no more can bear, than the Venetian glass
can remain unshvered when poison is poured
into it. This is well known to the country, to
HENRY s. FooTE himself, and to the especial
organ of the Democratic party, which, " like the
poor cat in the adage, letting | dare not, wait
upon, would" ventures neither to approve
or denounce it, though the appreciation or de-
nunciation Of that organ amounts to very little
nowadays. Still, when such bold attempt is
made to disorganize the party, of which it pre-
tends to be the anxious dry nurse, one would
suppose that it would say something, instead
of the "infnite deal of nothing" now daily
dinned into the drowsy ears of its readers
The fact is, the Union having been seduced by
Mr.. FooTE into the morass of Consultations
mir k.. CO. 4 ,