Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1858-10-02
Hon. Henry s. EoOte.

This old political fossil has been exhumed and
has recently been making a speech at Memphis,
Tenn 1t will be recollected that in 1850 he sud-
denly changed from a strong southern rights man
to one of the most abject submssionists. Repudi-
ated by his State, he emgrated to California; and
dsowned by the Democratic party, he turned Know.
Nothing Neither his new State nor his new party
honored him with Office, aud 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 iend The Washington Union thus alludes
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 vicissitudes
as the flying Dutchman, has ended his adventurous
cruise at the port aforesaid He has spent fretful
exile in California, where the exhilarating influences
Of the gold fever were expected to assuage his po-
Gical remorses; he has passed a seven years. az
premiership in the Botany Bay of political convicts
aoning for peccadioes committed against the laws
Of the Democracy at home; and he has now come
back to embark de nero upon new political career.
His behavior in the interim has not. however,
been proptous of 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, far from becoming whittier
than snow, have grown darker and more grim than
at first from the SCOT of the Lantern and the dank
sweat of the cuvert. Accordingly his temperance
at Memphis has not been creditable.
Imagine one of the queens of Billingsgate carried
to the solitudes of Van Dieman's Land for seven
years. and then restored to her old, congenial pre-
cnct. Yet, her tongue, let loose after so long a
durance, would scarcely rival in the rapidity and
Jury OF its envenomed ufterances the unruy men,
DER to which Mr. Foote gave so loose rein at Mem.
phls. There is a legend of a ship which went on
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
Inc lips; but az the vessel reached latitude
Of thaw, on her return, she became little Babel
with the din and clamor of the melting words In
,ne speech of Mr.. Foote at Memphis seems to have
oeen discharged all the pentup verbosity which had
oeen struggling seven years for utterance in that
9uernlous old man. To read it, one would think
mat all the ures had been let loose at once to tear
and rend the devoted carcase of our good old De-
mocracy
The speech has all the characteristics which inva
nably belong to the illusions of bankrupt, tahooed
and desperate Democratic politicians. It's eulogies
on renegade Democratic leaders are in the highest
straln of superlatve extravaganza; and its denun-
ea1ons of the Democratic organization and of its
accredited leaders more bitter and abusive than
speakers Of the regular opposition ever had the har-
ulhood to utter in their diatribes."