Weekly North Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1850-1858, 1858-10-06
Hon. Henry s. FoOte.

This old political fossil has been exhumed, and
has recently been making speech at Memphis,
Tenn. 1t will be recollected that in 1850 he sud-
denly changed from strong southern rights man
to one of the most abject submissionists. Repudi-
ated by his State, he emigrated to California and
dsowned by the Democratic party, he turned Know
Nothing. Neither his State his new party
honored him with office, and now he returns to the
old States, restless victim of the devil of ambition,
filled with impotent rage. and writhing in the grasp
of the fiend. The Washington Union thus audes
to him.
"The Hon. Henry S. Foote whose star has been
in eclipse so many years, has suddenly reappeared
in Memphis, Tennessee. The political wanderer and
outcast after passing through many vicissudes
the flying Dutchman, has ended his adventurous
cruise at the port aforesaid He has spent fretul
exile in California, where the exhilaratirg influences
of the gold fever were expected to assuage his po-
litical remorses; he has passed seven years ap-
premiership in the Botany Bay of political convicts
atonng for peccadlloes committed against the laws
Of the Democracy at home; and he has now come
back to embark de nero upon political career
His behavior in the interim has not, however
been propitious of an improved life. He became
implicated during his exile with the order of Know
Nothings and his period of regeneration was thus
converted into one of deeper political crime and
degradation. His sins, so far from becoming whittier
tnan snow, nave grown darker and more grim than
at first from the SCOT of the Lantern and the dank
sweat of the culvert. Accordingly his temperance
at Memphis has not been creditable.
Imagine one of the queens of Blingsgatc carried
to the solitudes of Van Diemans Land for seven
years. and then restored to her DID, congenial pre-
cnct. Yet, her tongue, let loose after long a
durance, would scarcely rival in the rapidity and
fury of its envenomed ufterances the unruly men,
Der to which Mr.. Foote gave loose rein at Mem.
phis. There is legend of ship which went on a
cruise in the Arctic regions, and reached point Of
intense cold where the words Of her officers and
crew became frozen and naudible as they fell from
the lips but the vessel reached latitude
Of tbaw, on her return, she became little Babel
with the din and clamor of the melting words In
the speech of Mr. Foote at Memphis seems to have
been discharged all the pent-up verbosty which had
been struggling seven years for utterance in thai
querulous old To read it. would think
that all the fures had been let loose at to
and rend the devoted carcase of our good old De
mocracy.
The speech has all the characteristics which inva
riably belong to the illusions of bankrupt abooed
and desperate Democratic politicians. It's enogie:
on renegade Democratic leaders in the highes
strain of superlative extravaganza; and its denun
cations of the Democratic organization and of it,
accredited leaders more bitter and abusive thar
speakers Of the regular opposition had the har
dihood to utter in their diatrbes." p. -a-. .-