Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1860-1862, 1860-10-19

you have witnessed to-day its effect npon the
people.
While speaking of the imminent dangers
which threaten the Union, not only from the
Northern fanatics, but from the reasonable
designs of ambitious and unprincipled men
at the South, Judge Brien painted the fearful
and bloody scenes which must follow an at
tempt to dissolve the Union in such vivid
coiors, that tears were wrung from the eyes
of men long unused to the melting mood.
His defence of the record of John Bell, his
exposition of the damnable scheme of dissolu-
ton being worked out by many of the most
influential members of the Breckenridge fac
ton at the South. and his argument to show
in what quarter and from whom the Union
can alone look for safety and restoration to
peace and tranquility in this darkest hour of
its history. were mastery in the extreme,
constituting one of the finest specimens of
stump Oratory have ever heard.
That Mr.. Breckenridge has no earthly
chance of election was thoroughly demon
strated by Judge Brien, and that demonsrra-
ton, so satisfactory to every unprejudiced
MUD who heard it, will yield its fruits to
John Bell and the Union at the ballot box in
November. The Democratic majority in this
county will be reduced at least one hundred
votes, and the speech of Judge Bren will
contribute greatly to the result. He has long
been known to many of the people here as an
able lawyer and profound jurist, and hence
forth he will be known also as among the
most powerful political speakers of the
country.
would like to say something handsome of
Mr.. WbtthOrne's effort, for for young
man, just beginning, as it were, his po-
litical career, be is by no means to he
laughed at but L can not say that
be came to day half way up to the
measure of his reputation. He is an
ingenious debator, speaks with much flu
ency, and possesses the happy faculty OF
not knowing when he is whipped but his
inability TO keep hotel and run the estab-
lishment successfully against the tact and
enterprise of such men as Judge Brien, was
painfully apparent to day. He is the must
inveterate sophist of his age west of the
mountains. and as if lacking the capital to
purchase stock of the best article. lie deals
in such shallow and fiimsy sophistry that
even the schOOl-boy sees through it as through
the meshes of mOsquitOe-bar or thin plate
of glass. And then on a subterfuge, be is
as daring. skillful and as much at home as
h. III
feet from the ground. This he borrows,
think, together with his eccentric style of
OratOry, the information of bis voice, DC, from
his prototype-his modle-his political deity
Andrew johnson. do not desire to I'M
derrate Mr.. Whitthorne's abilities. l know
he possesses abilities of fine order but
they are MISUNDERSTANDING lavished in a cause
where genius itself could not triumph, and
where mere talent, armed with nothing but
sophistry and the threadbare helmet of dead
party, must inevitably fail. The first half
hour of his speech to-day Was consumed in
showing that the Republican party is dan
gerous to the country, that the carrying out
OF the principles enunciated in the platform
of that party will result in a dissolution of
the Union, in daring Judge Brien to coutro-
vert the propositions, and in calling upon
the people to mark well the TACT that his
able and distinguished competitor would not
and dared not attempt 10 do So" When he
got through with this at the expiration of his
first half hour, l confidently expected him to
open out on the back-stretch with the further
and quite as important, logical and necessa-
~ proposition that the moon is not made Of
green cheese, and come round TO the home
stretch with bold and whitening challenge
to his competitor to prove that it is But he
did MT do it, and can account for the failure
only upon the supposition that, lin the hurry
of the moment" he forgot it. His principal
object seems to be to kill time as rffe,tually
as possible, for be cannot be brought TO say
that breckenridge has even the ghost of
chance of being elected and such being the
case, would suggest that, for the rest of the
canvass, he spare the people the fatigue OF
listening to an idle proposition and an idler
challenge to its RECITATION, and discuss the
question which recently engaged the atten-
tion of debating society up in Fentress.
which was stated somehow so at a Teller
that haint got nothing marries gal that
haint got nothing too, is her things his'n, or
is his things ber'n!"
Hastily yours, UNION.