Southern standard. [volume] (Columbus, Miss.) 1851-1856, 1852-05-08


winds of heaven whenever suits its purposes Push
on, We'll bde time.
! For tie Southern Standard.
Stump Speaking.
1t is an interesting study to note the various
notifications super induced upon the habits, man
ners and customs of European society by the pc
culiarity of our institutions Amongst others
would notice particularly the one which stands at
| the head of this article. 1t is an institution so
peculiarly American, that no foreigner could I'M
derstand it without assistance; experience would
be no guide to him, because the annals of his
country could furnish nothing like it. The En-
glishman could only imagine some House of Com
mons, of strange construction, but it could never
enter the mind of John Bull, that the great men
of his nation should go from hamlet to hamlet, or
to some sequestered grove, and there waste his
time in attempting to explain to his ignorant
countrymen the principles of the English govern
ment. The idea would be preposterous, because
If his auditors were ever much displeased with
their government, it would be all the
But with the p ople the fountain head of
all power and honor; their will is the unwrtten
constitution by which our ship of State is guided
All political questions must ultimately be referred
to them for decision. Vox Populi, vox Del, :"
and like all other gods they require their votaries
to consult them &c in propria persona. Our
people thinking people, but still more are
they working people; hence it is that they can
not spare the time to read and study both sides of
question in all its bearing, consequently they
must depend on hearing both sides fairly discus
sed by two competent men. Besides the infor
nation, there is also the pleasure of witnessing
a spiritued contest-an intellectual duel which
prospects is the most pleasing sight which can be
presented to our people.
Our people agricultural people. The
energies and wealth of the nation are not concen-
trated in few vast emporiums of commerce and
manufactures. We have London Paris
whose direction decides the control of the nation.
On the contrary, our people are rural people,
and he who would address them must seek them
where he can find them, and there, though his
only rostrum be stump, and his only roof the
waving foliage above him, he must take all the
pains to make his positions plain, that he would
use before the most highly educated audience that
could be assembled anywhere
And unless he has the power to do this-unless
he stand up before the assembled majesty of
the people, and there manfully and earnestly
plead his cause, he rise to political dis
tinction. Men there are whose minds have been
cultivated to the highest pitch of which they
were suscepdble-who have hung with delight
Plato over the death of Socrates, or sympathized
with Sappho in her life long lament, or drank in
spiration from Paradise Lost-and yet before a
popular audience they were poweress; their
beautiful and refined flights Of fancy were lost
upon men who came there in earnest to hear the
politics of the times discussed. Men there are
: who through the pages of a newspaper or a mag
azlne can electrify their readers with delight
; yet they feel that that is not power 1t is a
powerful man who rise up in an assembly,
many of them violently opposed to his person and
principles, and yet so entrance them by the force
of his arguments, the graceful responsiveness Of
d his manner, and the dignifed frmness with which
!, he answers the arguments opposed to him, thai
the whole assembly shall forget their hostility anC
: listen with admiration to every word
Stump speaking has become part of our ma
lions self. 1t differs from other kinds of orator,
: partly in the multiplicity of the subjects to b,
discussed, and the Importance that the whole out
line OF the speakers principles should be dsplaye,
at once; for this it is that clear and con
y else statements, lucid arguments, are of ia
: : more avail than that practced oratory which j
b cultivated in cities. 1t has become practica
! rule that no man can succeed in politics withou
e this power, and no man who possesses it to
great extent will ever fail. All our most ceebra
: ted men, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Randolph
!? Patrick Henry, have been eminently successful
this species of oratory and no father can conside
his sons education complete until he has prepare
! him as far as possible FORTS practice
n FOREM.
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Correspondence Of TIE Charleston Mercurv.
= COLUMBIA, April 26.
MEssRs. EDIToRs Tomorrow the Conyentio
VIII meet AS yet, nothing can be safely anticips