Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1860-08-22
.G @ For the Standard.
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS,

fOr tne Stan0ar0.
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS,
rs- Green Brier Co.. Va, July 27 1860
w. W. HOLDEN, ESQ. DO not for moment sup
pose that your correspondent could pass through
Charlottesville without observing with interest Vir
ginlas renowned University or unmoved by stirring
and powerful thoughts and emotions of its ilustr-
ons and immortal founder and bcnefactor, whose
honored dust reposes within the cerements of that
consecrated tomb in the grounds Of his own loved
Monticello! No, never
My 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.
And as the vast, yet still to be extended, scroll of
her distinguished archives, emblazoned with heroic
Geefis, was unrolled before ine and there went up
in review 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 ntatory steps towards separation
from the oppressive mother land, taken by the pa
triotic colony in House Of Burgesses and Hall of
Independence
In the Provincial Assembly her chivalric sons
reused to determined action by the impetuous and
fiery 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 proeama-
ton of now world-accepted truths, by the chaste
and finished rhetoric and the polished, silvery elo
quence of Richard Henry Lee
And me thought that if my own New Hampshire
may boast her Webster Mason. Woodbury., Ather-
ton, Cass and Pierce, Virginia too point to her
precious jcwels-to George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson-to Henry, Lee. Pendleton 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 hand, he determined the "metes
and bounds" Of, perhaps, some of the same acres
and sections over which, in unconscious scorn of
those hallowed thoughts, and with the speed of the
wind, the iron horse then undreaned even in most
wandering and prophetic visions, was hurrying me
swiftly forward:
And as the fitting milc-stones swept uncounted
to the rear the correct and truthful youth of nine
teen, advanced few years in life is again seen the
God-prcserved Commander of the decimated squad
rons on the blood baptized field of Monongahela.
When the mature and ri,ened General Chief
appears, as riding along in our classic Cambridge,
beneath those ehns, coeva with the Pilgrims land
ing he was accosted in the gloom Of thickening
twilight by " Geaeral-.trOm the right 6ank Of the
Potomac; :" the response of Dan Morgan to the
Chiefs eager challenge, "achat 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 Princetons smoking plain, as the
waves of defeat surged against his heated and ex-
hausted battahOns and reckless of his own life,
and reused into towering, terrific wrath at culpable
neglect and cowardice, and possible treachery he
spurs his frantic charger up almost to the very
| mouths of Britain's advancing cannon
And yet once again my teeming thoughts revert
to the old Legislative Hall at Annapolis where that
pnre, unseltsh, 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 rule seemed profered and urged upon him by
the millions of his grateful and coniding country
! men,
| And in closing this letter cannot do it lore ap-
! propriately, or more in consonancc with my own
feelings than by a7pending the following tribute to
! our revered Washington it being quotation from
Lord Brougham, the venerable octogenarian states
man and hternteur, and peerless among Engands
| most gifted and eminent orators and philosophers.
The occasion his recent installation Chancel-
lor of the University of Edinburgh In his Grafton
he speaks of the selfshness 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 illusrious patriot and
hero. and SAYS -.-
But in Washington We may contemplate ecery
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; successful ruler in
! all the difficulties Of course wholly untred-di-
! rectlng the formation of new government for a
| great people-the first time so vast an experiment
had ever been tried my man voluntarily and unos-
tentatously retiring from supreme power with the
venera.on Of all parties of all nations of all man.
kind that their rights may be conserved, and that
his example might never be appealed to by vulgar
| tyrants
ut will be the duty of the historian and the
sage, in all ages, to omit occasion of commemo-
rating this illustrous man, and until time shall be
more will test of the progress which one has
| made in wisdom and in virtue be derived from the
veneratlon paid to the immortal name Of Washing.
| ton" VELANO