Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1854-05-09
On mmnaitate0.
70 the Hon. simon Pure.
LIrrLE BuNcoMpE, Mag 5, |!

LITTLE BUNcoMBE, May 5, 1854.
Oh that some power The gift would give us,
To see ourselves as others see us.n
When you made that quotation from Watts's
hymns at the mass meeting at Simpleton, my
dear Simon, and said that precious book
ought to be in every school library, did not
think it would come home to you and me in such
hurry. But let us get at things in regular
order.
When you wrote me that you had franked
to your constituents ever so many thousands OF
your great anti-Nebraska speech, thought,
with you, that Little Buncombe was nailed.
Who on earth could dream of our folks taking
it into their contrary heads to look at the other
side of the story in the way they are doing
We bought barrel Of whisky, as you directed,
and sensit down to Iron Mills creek, with the
resolutions you sent us out to pass there, and
they did pass gloriously. The meeting at the
Church Corners was temperance meeting of
course, and there the anti-N ebraska resolutions
for that place went through equally well. The
Rev. John Myope opened the meeting with a
prayer that "our brethren of all colors should
henceforth stand equally together on election
tickets, in marriage covenants, and in the House
of Representatives" 1t was so affecting that
half the audience melted into tears, and the res
olutions went through unanimously So they
did at Donkey Hollow, where we told them the
shareholders would come north and take all
New England if the Nebraska iniquity"
should pass Congress.
five had only stopped there, Simon, and kept
clear Of explanations, your district would have
taken you and the Nebraska bill at yourown val
uation. But for this after agitation, twould have
seen you as you see yourself-a little smarter,
and a great deal more patriotic, than the whole
of the old fogy Continental Congress put to-
gether. People must be fools not to see that
Jefferson and all that pack were small potatoes
by the side of you and Fred Douglass, espe-
cally as three thousand ministers have endorsed
the fact; but, strange to say, even the folks at
Simpleton are coming out for the old-fashoned
doctrines of Washington, Jefferson, and the
Continental Congress.
1t is ridiculous in them; but the truth is, my
dear M. G., your constituents begin to take an
interest in the question, since they have found
out that it turns upon the right OF people to
govern themselves and they won't see us any
more as we want them to see US. There is
nothing left for us now but to try and "see
ourselves as others see us.p
don't want to reproach you, Simon, but
fear you have managed badly in letting the
people get at the real nature of the Nebraska
bill. You ought to have choked it to death
without discussion. Then you could come home
and tell the masses that you had saved the
Union; that you had done something mighty
for the north; that your vote had stopped the
growth of slavery throughout creation, and fifty
other elegant Probabilities that Little Bun
COMPLETES love to hear, and would have swal-
lowed without examination, if you had not
given them an overdose. We are getting into
an awful reaction here. lam not calm enough
to do it now, but tomorrow | will tell you how
our last grand mass meeting that was to be
flashed in the pan.
Yours, faithfully,
PETER SIMPLE.