Arkansas true Democrat., 1859-02-23
To the Editor of the Gazette.

FP oii" eo express your opIHloH cOH- cerning my abilities as a writer, my ante cedents, my status, (whatever that means, ) my conscience and my principles. was ied to believe, from other sources, that your notice of me would be in, different style There was hardly any opprobrious epithet that dld not expect to have applied to me; no measure of abuse that 1 did not ex- pect to meet, and I had been, for week, trying to cultivate spirit of philosophy wherewlth to meet it; to wrap myself up, as It were, in philosophical cloak on which to receive the mud Judge then, of my surprise at the entirely different style you adopted. You will pardon me Ii tell you that upon reading the para graph 1 doubted whether you wrote it, Perhaps you had the assistance of "a law yer ot no mean repute," whose democracy you lndorsed, like charitable man as you are, for 1t sadly needed indorsing And you know that this surmise of mine is very natural, for you and he are, or have been, so exceedingly intimate of late You say of me:
 " He is a sprightly writer, of facile an tecedents, uncertain status, elastic con- science, and marketable principles
 First, as regards the compliment of be- ing sprightly writer, I beg you to consider that 1 have made you low bow. You are " some' writer yourself-not sprghtly by any means-rather heavy, elephantine, in fact. Allow me to say that l neither know or care how 1 write, or what style l may employ, so that l say the thing to be said directly, plainly and in becoming language.
 Your next phrase, if it be yours, of "t tacile antecedents,' sounds Tappertitish. Are you sure you wrote that article? Per haps you do not know or have been misin- formed concerning my antecedents to which you prefix the term facile,' meaning thereby that they are easy, 1 suppose To enable you to avoid making mistakes in future and so, to set those right who take their cue from you, let me tell you what they are. 1 have no desire to conceal, because there is nothing in my po- litical life that 1 need to be ashamed of, or if there is one step that 1 should regret having taken, you are, Tn part, responsible for that The first vote for presidential electors that I was old enough to east, was in 1914, for Clay. 1 voted in lS4S for Taylor. In 1852, I was too much of whig to vote for Pierce and too good state rights man to vote for Scott. In 1856, voted for James Buchanan. If l live till 1860, expect to vote for Mir. Hun ter. l was a whig, as 1 am democrat from principle-because 1 believed and be- lieve it to be right, and not whether it was or is popular, expedient or lucrative. It is too late in the day to tell people that a man who was a whg in the democratic State of Arkansas, for ten years-who re- sided all that time in county, where u majority outnumberad his political friend four to one, and where his warmest and best friends were democrats-whose every pecuniary interest would have prompted him to become democrat-who, in 1852, rejected in this very city an offer of lar ger sum yearly than he ever expects to re- ceive, if he would turn democrat and op- pose the so-called Johson or regular demo- cracv, and who, if he was not bound in honor to preserve inviolate private conver- sations and letters, could unfold some strange tales concerning 0vertures that were made to and refused by hint is too late Capt. Danley, to tell the people that such a man would change in 1S56 in order to be on the strong side, or to acquire wealth or place. And of those who know me, | can confidently ask, if l ever feared to ex- press an opinion or take a side because the majority were opposed to me or that it would lnlure me- Ask them as regards
 
 money, If ever l was so fond of 1t as to sep out of the way to get it, or if they ever knew man with less acquisitiveness than l have. In December, 1854 or January, 1855, l came to this city. | had stood upon the deck of the old whig ship till it went down beneath the waves Upon com ing to the surface, we whigs found but two other vessels in sight One was the old democratic ironsides which we had so long regarded as our foe and the other new ship with the American flag at the foe.- It was natural-it was almost matter of course, that the whigs should join the lat ter And you then editor, had abused the whigs more bitterly, more unscrupulouslv and vindictively than any editor in the State
 Federalist was the mildest term you ap- piled to them and if they were not all thieves and cut-throats, the least that could be said of them, according to your statements. was l tudU they were all HloldTCHlSuS ana sought to,establish kingcraft. At this particular iuncture, you were opposing know nothing ism You stated that you had examined it, weighed it and found it detestable. It was natural for the whigs to suppose that it was good thing because you abused it. They argued that, as you had opposed them, that what you now opposed must be right This induced many to join it, who, if you had favored it, would not have touched it. May God forgive you! Thus 1 reasoned and was induced to join it, because it pro- missed that it would recognize no mere po- litician, and vaunted that |" the office should seek the man. Twas in it till the spring, when finding that it's splendid promises were all unfulflled, I withdrew and de- termined to have nothing more to do with politics or parties. And I did all this