The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1867-07-03
SPEECH or JUDGE KELLEY.
addressed to his Fellow Citizens Assem-.
bled to Greet him on his Return from


bled to Greet him on his Return from
the South.
= Judge Kelley said My friends, neigh
2 bors and constituents am profoundly
grateful for this demonstration OF your al
fectionate interest. never Knew now sa,
cred that word home so felicitously uttered
by Mr., Pierson was, until during my recent
absence from you. When covering before
re- more than hundred bullets, or while my
. body was sheltered from them by those OF
two negroes, who periled their lives 20 save
q mine. j realized how dear were home, KIM
u yflrefl and friends + left you at the invita-.
. iltion of the Governor of Louisiana and the
~ Msyor Of New Orleans to visit that distant
a State and city, hoping that Imight serve
IS our distracted country, and eager to view
= that nearly one-half of our cis-NIississippi
B territory from which, by reason Of my love
! of personal liberty, l had so long been ex-
cludcd. did not dream of danger Others
spoke of it, but / scoffed OF the idea. l
went. bearing no hatred to any man; but
!, believing that the truths which for the last
I eleven years I have been in the habit OF pro-
claiming to you, would be specially useful to
y the people Of that section, I gladly availed
~ myself Of the opportunity Of uttering them
az kindly and courteously in their midst; and,
~ nv friends, throughout my extended excur-
j sion / was received with all the kindness
and courtesy the people were able to bestow
upon me wherever went, save in one city
70 Ltherefore, beg you not to charge the muir
~ derous spirit. of the Mobile mob to the
4, Southern peopleat large (Applause) That
outrage was due more largely to Andrew
johnson, the reactionary President of the
United States, than even to the municipal
authorities of Mobile or the mob they should
y have held in subsection. The chief promo.
ter of that murderous riot was a recreant
Northerner, who had been sent to that city
by the President as Assessor of Internal Rev
ennue Colonel Mann, formerly of Michigan,
who owns the Mobile Times. That paper
= had, in advance of my arrival, excited the
passions Of the Southern people against me,
In an article on the day preceding my arri-
val, every allegation, in which Col. Mann
is admitted in the presence of two gentlemen
now present to be wholly false and unfoun-
ded, had infamed the passions of the Irish
citizens of Mobile against me. But not to
detain you with the details of that sanguina-
ny scene, let me say that the outbreak was
provoked by no indiscreet word of mine
1t had been planned before / went to the
meeting, if not before arrived in Mobile,
and the man Immediately behind me would
have been shot through the head, as he was,
and another not five feet from me would
Z have been murdered, as he was, at the pre-
concerted signal had been reading the Lit
any or the Lords Prayer / am told it has
~ been sneeringly said that got under ia
~ Bile. have never been soldier or sought
reputation at the lannon's mouth, and very
freely admit that, when the bullets were
whizzing by and pattering against the wall
behind me, ! would have thanked Almighty
Godfor a bullet-proof table under which to
creep.
.fsaE In. Memphis, the people of which adj
before going to New Orleans, the ell
"a egapt opera house was crowded. My au-
dience represented every shade of complex
H., ion and political opinion. In many instan-
:. .ces, at least, SO well known citizens of Mem
phis assured me, the late Rebel soldier, who
had met our army on many field, and the
enfranchised slave, sat side by side, and
when closed my extended address, my name
and those of our city and State were hearth
:, ly cheered.
a's-sif Had been in some signal respect the ma
z tion's benefactor, could not have been more
q honored in New Orleans than I, was during
9 my four days stay in that thousand of her
9 people in lafayette Square, I was generously
- entertainedby (among others former citi-
81 zen of Philadelphia, three of whose sons
aa.s had served and one had fallen in the Confed-
q. crate army. From many such received
20 thanks for the frankness and courtesy of my
speech. ga
: Leaving Mobile on government boat,
which, may remark, was provided for me
not at my request, but because General Shep-
fh<,-D
the Judgment Of the Union men of Mobile,
that my friends and would encounter in
suit, if not outrage, on the regular boat for
Tensas where we must take the cars, pro-
ceeded to Montgomery. In that. city, the
!. picturesque site of which strikingly resem-
bles that of Washington, I occupied rooms
in the hotel from which the order to fire on
Fort Sumpter had gone forth, from the bal
cony Of which the Confederate Declaration
of Independence had first been read to the
{. public, and on the balcony of which Ste
phen A. Douglas had been pelted with eggs
= in 1860. Though pursued by the malignant
e. falsehoods of the Mobile papers, 1 felt as safe
a and spoke as frankly in Montgomery as I
now do at the Threshold of my home.
daddressed the citizens from the rear of
: the capitol. The meeting numbered about
4 three thousand people, white and colored,
whose political opinions were quite as di-
verse as their compilations. Nothing dis
turbed the harmony of the meeting; and at
its close was not only cheered, but leading
citizens grouped about me pressed me to
visit other sections of the State and address
, the people. Conspicuous among these was
- Judge Justice, who was also Chief Justice Of
the Confederate State of Alabama q
To comply with this request was impossi-
BILE, and started next morning for Atlanta,
Ga, abeautiful and prosperous city, which,
by its sudden rise from its ashes exceeds the
i.sisfabled Phoenix. 1t is rapidly fulfilling its
destiny, and becoming great railroad and
commercial centre Wearrived there toward
90 the close of bright Sunday afternoon, and
: q were received at the depot by committee
. f9of prominent citizens, and thousands of col
fsasoredpeople, in their clean, gay Sunday at
esai tire. The next morning we visited the
81 Storr's school for freedmen, and, large as il
% 81 my familiarity with the schools of the
North, / am free to say that have neye]
.zseen a classified school superior to this. In
the afternoon addressed meeting resem
bling that at Montgomery in numbers char
acter and good order The same generous
expressions followed my remarks, and among
the, pleasant things said by the MANI who
- gathered around me was an offer by tn,
Quartermaster General Of the Confederat,
State OF Georgia, to pay my expenses if /.
would remain in the State and address til,
people Of every county. ~ ~ ia B.
Ny engagements in North Carolina. reoui
red my early departure and we left the mex