Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-08-21
A RacY Speech.


most racy speech of the day. His des-
cription ofthe rump Congress is splendid,
but too lengthy for our space. The
death scene is short, but good
The first session of the thirty
Congress has ended. The best thing it
did was to die laughter For al
together in its life, its death was its chief
merit Posterity will remember with
gratitude that spark of patriotism which
led it to-the tomb. But it is not al.
together dead. Non ominus morair.
1t survives in the memory of men and
in five thousand pages of Congressional
Globes Laughter. Upon its vol
umes Of immortal type, piled quario
upon quarto, sits, as on sublime pedes-
tai OF talk, this American Rump
Laughter 1t is, therefore, immortal.
Let me lay my immOrteiles on its tomb
Nero had his friends, and his affection
after death has an historic fragrance,
would lay my little for-getme not at
the shrine Of this congregation of petty
Neros. Laughter My sadness is
very similar to that of the minister who
was requested to preach the funeral Of a
very bad young man After giving his
characteristics, he ordered the body re.
moved, while the choir sang the hymn ;
with rapture we delight to zee
This wicked cuss removed"
The conclusion of the speech is splen-
did, classical and jnst The allusion to
Congress leading eleven States cap
tives to make an Abolition holiday,
sends the blood boiling through Southern
veins: ld
Thus, in conclusion, / return to the
overmasterng problem for the people to
solve. Shall Congress lead these eleven
States through the indefinite future, cap
tives to make an Abolition holiday or
shall another Congress, aiding the Presi-
dent enlarge them in the liberty of in
dependent and self.reliant Statehood ?
The historian of Rome draws something
from his imagination when he pictures
the proud Queen of Palmyra, Zenobia,
arrayed in purple, yet loaded with golden
chains, to aggrandize the procession in
honor of the conquerQr Of Asia 1t needs
no stretch of the Imagination to picture
the fate of eleven States, not of foreign
origin, but of one blood, language, his
tory and religion, following with down
cast eye the triumphal chariot of Con-
gressional power States, the area of
which is over 725,000 square miles |;
larger than France, England, Spain,
Portugal and all of Germany; having a
population of 100000; whose annual
product from little pod is greater than
the wealth which the Roman bore in his
stately galleys to Rome from the
golden and jeweled orient [Cheers.
Virginia, too proud, perhaps, but
with such grandeur of great
names on her rolls the Carolinas,
weary of their waywardness, but still the
home of the Pinckneys, who gave the
Constitution to America, and of those
who, at Mecklenburg, anticipated the
Declaration which at Kings mountain,
consummated our independence Geor-
gia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, whose
feet are kissed by the waters of thou
sand rivers, which, rolling through the
valley of the Mississippi, gather their
volumes of wealth from Minnesota to
Louisiana-these are the subject States
led in fetters at the car of this Imperial
Congress. Cheers. Such exhibition
dishonored the greatness of even Pagan
Rome; they would not be tolerated by
ambitious France, which takes Venetia
as gift from the Kaiser only to set it as
Jewel in the crown of United Italy. 1t
might find its counterpart in the
great land animal of the North-Russia
lin whose embrace PROSTATE Poland
groans. Forgetting her own grasp of
Ireland, England assumes to be horrified
at the spectacle Even in Turkey, the
policy of strangling brothers by the Sui
tan no longer makes the traveller shud-
der as be crosses the Bosphorus. Butfor
this Christian land of America, the peo-
pie do not ask such mockery of triumph
and such a degradation of power
[Cheers1 They win write the epitaph
of the Congress which proposes it in let
ters of fire Here lies the fragment of
the thirty-ninih American Congress,
which starting with furtive conspiracy
against the President, with opportunities
never before youchsafed for blessing,
postponed union and putting the nation
in peril of another civil war, it died mn.
der the just indignation Of an aroused
people, and is damned to an immortality
Of infamy |" [Cheers
A frsE Ea IN