The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-03-18
RATE OF suBscRPTIoNs.
a LETTER WORTH READINs.

ThHd. Stevens, ChaS. Sumner. John
MOrrfssey. Fernando wOOd---InteE,
eatIng Pen Pictures
Correspondence Of The Cincinnati Gdzete
WASHINGTON March 10, 1861.
A Southern Congress was tableau;
a Northern Congress is a panorama.
Weak eyes, that do not perceive the
true purpose of q national legislature,
would have Hayne and Webster eter-
ually measuring adjecuves, Clay weigh
ing silver phrases, Calhoun hiding his
soul in his wild hair, shooting match
around the Speakers chair, and much,
material compiled every session for
school elOcutiOn. The old-fashioned,
brilliant Congress was windy and the
atrical, il had no mind for figures; it
couldn't keep its seats with dignity
when Cockburn's handful of marines
marched on Washington. but fled to
Carlisle or somewhere, and obtained its
greater immortality in burlesque
There We're giants in those days, but
nursery giants in the main-competfng
vauities striving for forensic distinc-
ton. They had no conception of a just,
generous and worthy average of oppor-
tunities. Eight or ten were stars and
preferred stocks; the best were elected
TO be a background of fsupernumeraries.
l read the swelling speeches of those
days with pleasure, but half the time
with an inward consciousness that the
echo is louder than the fact was.
Old men cotempOrary with such
Congresses remember to the con-
trary. OF course they do! I meyer
knew an old man in my life who hadn't
better opinion of Andrew Jackson's
fighting than of Phil Sheridan's. If
the generic old man thought as much
of our worthies as ofhis, there wouldn't
be anything for his youth to swear by.
FThnEn hnrniR FsnnuraazaE ne aar
called, were in the millenial age of We
gentle fire-eater. His chances for brag
and parading his pedigree were then
first class. He looked over his shoulder
at the North, as il it were a small snow
bound section that he saved from beg
making his boots and shipping his to-
bacco. Well, this fearless Southern
galaxy tried its separate Congresses.
Where is the record of the Confederate
Legislature2 If there is in the rebel.
lions record any poor, dog cared, OBJ
miserable than any other, it is the Con-
federate Congress. Where are its ora
tors? Who We're they? Is Cicero still
a memory since they lived, or Demos
themes yet considerable text book7
want YOU to turn moment to the
Yankee Congress it lett behind. Its
record is now six yeaIs old. 1t has
heard during the six years cannon 10
the right of it cannon to the left of it,
cannon to the front of it. 1t is the first
series OF Congresses that the Executive
has been advised to disperse at the point
of the bayonet the first whose
leaders that Executive has denounced;
n Congress that has more reason and
need to be sober, diligent, fearless,
humane and Senatorial, IN the old Ro-
man sense, than any we have known.
Its work is well nigh done. 1t has
iecency and ability and patriotism that
our legislative history shows. And
while, at grave crises and places, where
murder, or defeat, or treachery struck
1t dumb for an instant, it has made the
saddest intellectual tableaux that an
American artist could represent; its
action has been panoramic, sweeping
graudly on the ends it swore-a life
rather than statute, purpose more
than a painting.
If you look tor portraits, where have
you a stronger one than Thaddeus
Stevens? Wearing his wig like Judge
to pronounce upon treason; his body
near burnt out in freedoms uses, bat
the strong fire within it ruddy still, he
slowly and gravely goes to and fro upon
his limp foot, like Topped veteran, and
preserving the indignations of youth,
has less of the petulancy of years and
vanity than the man of half his ser
Z
have made this man so high and po-
tent, that the railings OF hundred
hungry Sipers make him the more con-
spicuous. like the LAGOON. Every
second day, death rattles- him in his
bed. Every alternate day, freedom
calls him to his seat. While he is the
enemy to death of the last vestige of
barbarism, there is no man in whose
private generosity rebel, slave
holder, or conservative" can better
q gG.-E,. Il
| phens pass Schuyler GolfaX with nod, +,
| to take the bitterer denouncer by the
hand. he relents nothing of principle
for coQuetry or threat, but never embar-
rassed the true interest of the coun-
| try to carry "a point. Mr.. Seward
goes to him with the essential
appropriations, and the nation moves
nearer together. He stands at the head
of the great loyal party of the North,
and the rising loyal party of the South,
because he has distincter purposes, a
completer devotion, and broader
plan than any member of his organiza-
| ton. He believes that while we are
| in the breach, masters of the citadel,
we should break every braZen image
which slavery set up, and explode every
/ spiked gun. Then, with artificial preju-
| dices destroyed, treason both to the
country and TO freedom made odious,
ted to their equal place in the republic,
we shall start fair where our fathers
only dreamed fair, and establish de-
mocracy as n fact, and not as a theory.
Next of Mr.. Johnson's excommuni-
Gated ones, behold Charles Sumner.
| There are thousands of Southern men
who never saw him, and in whose i'm
| aRinatious he is a hateful presence,
| thirsting for revenge and blood. The
South probably never produced the
equal of Charles Sumner as physical
man; he is the most scholarly stature
in Congress, with the inches of Kit
North and the face OF Longfellow; q
placid, grave and reyereut look, like u
perpetual sacred thought, is fastened
| upon his most regular features; his
hair has turned beautiful, rather than
gray, like frost upon ripe fruit;
his walk is forgetfulness and grace
together; his talk is like Youl
Confessor's, soothing while Il
expIoreS: his modesty among womeu
Is fiattering and tender, yet no one ever
knew him TO divide a human right IL
half, or smooth a principle TO eompli
ment. By other processes than Mr.
Stevens he has reached the same poin
in ethics, showing that the light Is i'm
mutabIe whether you struggle up to i
. or down to it Mr.. Stevens, in slow
Obtuse community, associated with {
less than ordinary class of motives anC
aspirations, was not reduced to thei
plane; scholarship and tastes bTough
i, no GelfiShneSs to Mr.. Summer, nor auN
mean conceit that the few should b,
: LEARNED and master; the assassin tina
! would have slain him in the Senate wa.
, low in taste as in principle. The mar