Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1860-08-18
For the standard.
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60 - Green Brier CO.. Va, July ~. 1850
w w. HOLDEN, ESQ.,: Do not for a moment SUPP
pose that your correspondent could pass through
Charlottesville without observing with interest Vir-
ginia renowned University, or unmoyed by stirring
and powerful thoughts and emotions Of its illustri
ons and immortal founder and beneiaetor, whose
honored dust reposes within the cerementso of that
eonsecrated tomb in the grounds of his own loved
Monticelloi No, never =.
Ny mind was busy all along over the millions of
broad acres of the Old Dminion from the Potomac
to the Blue Ridge, with the long and crowded array
of "reminiscences and incidents connected with the
colonial and revolutionary history of the noble old
Commonwealth s.
And as the vast, yet still to be extended scroll of
her distinguished archives emblazoned with heroic
deeds, was unrolled before me- and there went up
inrevew from out the silent past that long procession
of stirring events and brilliant achievements of acts
deeds and sacrifices in the cause of patriotism and
liberty, the mind pondered reverently upon that
splendid record Of initatory steps towards separation
from the oppressive mother land taken by the pa
triotic colony in House of Burgesses and Hall of
Independence $3.50 - 2E
In the Provincial Assembly her chivalric sons
reused to determined action by the impetuoris and
merry eXordiums and harangueS of Patrick Henry
And upon the floor of the Continental Congress.
her young and rising statesman, chairman of that
great Committee, supported in his solemn proclama-
ton of now world-accepted truths, by the chaste
and finished rhetoric, and the polished silvery eo-
quence of Richard Henry Lee.
And me thought that if my own New Hampshire
may boast Der Webster, Mason, Woodbury., Ather-
ton, Cass and PIERCE Virginia. too, point to her
precious jewels--to George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson-to Henry, Lee. Pendeton. Wythe, Pey-
ton Randolph, Madison, Monroe, William irt and
Henry Clay. And my thoughts conjured up the
handsome young surveyor with compass and
memorandum in hani, he determined the "metes
and bounds" Of, perhaps, some of the same acres
and sections over which, in unconscious scorn of
those halowed thoughts, and with the speed of the
wind the iron horse. then undreamed, even in most
wandering and prophetic visions, was hurrying me
swiftly forward
And as the fitting mile-stones swept amounted
to the rear, the correct and truthful youth of nine
teen, advanced few years in life is again seen the
God-preserved Commander Of the decmated SQUAD
rons on the blood baptized field of Monongahela
When the mature and rrened eneralin-Chief
appears, as riding along in classic Cambridge,
beneath those elms, coeval with the Pilgrims land
ing, he was accosted in the gloom of thickening
twilight by GeneraL.trOma the right bank Of the
Potomac;" the response of Dan Morgan to the
Chiefs eager challenge Schdt company is that as
at the end of his long foot march from home the
veteran rife ranger drew proudly into line his COM
mand of picked men from old Fredericksburg in sa-
lutte to his surprised and delighted Commander.
Once more looked and saw the trembling scales
of liberty go up and down amid the shock and car
mage Of battle on Prnceton's smoking plain, as the
waves of defeat surged against his heated and ex-
hausted battaliOnS and as reckless of his own life
and reused into towering terrific wrath at cupable
neglect and cowardice, and possible treachery, he
spurs his frantic charger up almost to the very
mouths Of Britain's advancing cannon.
And vet once again my teeming thoughts revert
to the old Legislative Hall at Annapolis where that
pure, unselfish, perfect man, patriot warrior hero
statesman resigns his command, ard tenders back
his commission to the Confederated Congress whence
he received it; and this too when supreme power
and rnle seemed profcred and urged upon him by
the millions of his grateful and confdng country
men.
And in closing this letter cannot do it ...ore ar
propriately, or more in consonance with my own
feelings than by a2pending the following tribute TO
our revered Washington, it being quotation from
Lord Brongham, the venerable octogenarian states
man and HtsrdteHr, and peerless among Englands
most gifted and eminent orators and philosophers
The occasion his recent installation as Chancel
Tor Of the University of Edinburgh. In his grafton
he speaks Of the selishness of the first Napoleon
in meagre terms of his contemporary and fellow
countryman Wellington, but in massive strains of
praise and eulogy of our own ilustrous patriot and
hero. and says:
" But in Washington may contemplate erery
excellence military and civil applied to the service
of his country, and of mankind; triumphant war
rior, mistaken in confidence when the most san
gune had right to despair; a successful ruler in
all the difficulties of course wholly untried-di-
rectIng the formation of government for a
great people-the first time so vast an experiment
had ever been tried my man voluntarily and unos-
tentatiousy retiring from supreme power with the
venera.ion of all parties of all nations, Of all
kind that their rights may be conserved, and that
his example might never be appealed to by vulgar
tyrants
at will be the duty of the historian and the
sage, in all ages, to omit occasion of commemo-
rating this Industrious man; and until time shall be no
made in wisdom and in virtue be derived from the
yeneratIon paid to the immortal name of Washing
ton" VELANO.