Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1865-03-09
The Republican Black Beard.

The debate in the Senate on the question
ofa1mtting the claim Of certain individuals
10 represent the State Of Louisiana in the
national Congress has not thrown any par
ticular light 50 far upon the constitutional
principles involved in that question But
1t has done something 10 teach the Rcpubl-
can Senators what manner Of men they are.
and what sort Of master they have been
elected to serve under
1t is related Of that eminent and enter
taining mariner, Black beard. " that. bv
way Of keeping his officers to due sense Of
their subOrdination to himself, a. well as
for the purpose Of testing their mettle, he
had a pleasant fashion Of blowing out the
lights in the cabin after supper, and firing
his pistols at random under the table.
The captain Of the Republican party in
the Senate, who notoriously uses the spec
utum mundf az mirror, and gets himself
up on the mould Of the finest antaue char
acters, has evidently taken a leap out of
Black Beard diary. Mr. Sumner is not
to be blamed for looking down somewhat
snperciliously upon his mates. He is a
fair French scholar, and remembers the pro-
verb which tells US that 'in the kingdom Of
the blind and the one-eyed is king" and he
has seen enough Of educated society in
either hemisphere to be perfectly well aware
that none of his republican colleagues could
hope to pass muster beside himself intel
lectually, IN any company Of statesmen and
scholars. Men like Mr.. Chase who give
their days and nights, even at the risk of
amaurosis, to such literature as "Cudio's
/ Cave" or like Mr.. Wade. who could not
tell, even on pain or crucifxOn, whether
his own name is Of Saxon Norman, or Gel
tic, origin: or like Mr. Wilson, who knows
no more of polite letters. than thinker
does Of court etiquette; or like Mr. Chan
der, who is infinitely more familiar with
the price of calicoes than with the rules Of
logic, are 50 far as Mr. Summers interiors
on all those points upon which it most gals
men to feel their inferiority that they in
stinctively cover before him in sullen, un.
gracious kind Of way which fatters hi.
pride without Precipitation his benevolence
Representing. too, as he does, the element
Of positive fanaticism, and of positive ha
tired to the South which has necessarily do
! mineered by slow but sure degrees in tn,
} policy of his party, Mr. Sumner has fel
his personal superiority reinforced by tht
progressive accumulation Of his politica
!, weight. The sort of social contempt fo
the Chases, and Wades, and Chambers
and Wilson's around him, which, from hi
first entrance into public life, has almost un
distingui>hedly marked his bearing among
them, has thus become political contempt
as well. He is i'll the state Of mind a dan
l dy, who being accidentally thrown among
clodhoppers, discovers that he can thrash
the Doors as thoroughly as he outdresses
them. No wonder, then, that being the
sort of person he is, and naturally as desti-
tute of magnannimity as he Is of modesty,
he has come at last to treating his fellow.
senators openly just as he thinks they de-
serve to he treated. A senator by the name
of Henderson, from Missouri, pluming him
self unwisey on his loyalty to the admin
istration was foolish enough on Friday
last, to provoke this formidable ships cap
tain by some indiscreet and insubordinatt
remaks about the limitation of the power o
Congress over the qualifications of the suf,
frage in the several states. Crock! went
the captains pistol on the spot, and the
discomfited Henderson was dropped sud
denly back into his seat with the assertion
that by the loyal citizens of Southern
States negroes, and for the most part ne
groes only are meant; and that people who
i come into the Senate under Mr.. Sumner 5
flag must come prepared to obey orders, and
not to suggest mutiny.
Mr.. Sumner is perfectly right to do as he
will with his own. All that there is in the
Republican party of solid and homogeneous
is at his back; all its claims to represent in
public life the educated opinion of the coun-
try Test on his shoulders; he is the only
leader of the party who has steadily had his
own way at home, and whose name conveys
any distinct idea tie foreign observers of om
affairs. He is the legitimate Agamemnon
and having no Ulysses to back him, he i,
quite right to stand up for himself anG
thwack any ill-advised Thersites of his crew
into silence, if not into submission.