Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1867-04-04
LOCAL NEWS.
rH11RsDAY EVENING, APRIL 4.

IoHS HAMILTON, ''oF Texas An assem-
hoee Of about three hundred colored people,
aarlv all of whom were old residents OF the
49, and fourteen white people, who have re-
s;aed here since the commencement OF the war,
.onvened last night at the First Colored Bap-
tst Church, on Alfred street, and, at eight
a,e1ock, was called to order by R. D. Beckley,
s,lored. who nominated as chairman, 'George
Tucker, the rightful Mayor Of Alexandra. :"
The nomination being endorsed, Mr.. Tucker,
otter prayer, by a colored preacher, named
Parker, introduced to the meeting Ex-Provls-
;ons Governor John Hamilton, Of Texas, the
arst man in the South, within the chairman's
knowledge, who had advocated manhood sui
ftape Dir. Hamilton then arose. and Tor the
snaee OF two hours iudulged himself in the de-
l;verv of speech, which, for triteness, dema-
oopueism and ineendiaryism was never excelled
IN this city, save by some of the Rev. Mr..
Hunnicutt's. He justified the aesecration OF
nnlpits to partizan purposes. He compared
virginia now to what she was in times gone
bv-apd the evidence was decidedly in favor of
her former condition He said that the states,
mauship of o-day was infinitely superior to that
which obtained in former days, and that any
man of sound mind, who had gone through
the experience CT the last five years, was a bet
Ter statesman than Daniel Webster! He found
beinous faults with the constitutions of the
States of New York and Ohio, and asserted
that if Congress, whose course he did not par
ticularly admire, had the nerve, affairs in those
States would be speedily corrected. Genera
R. E. Lee, General Wade Hampton, Gov.
YIN. Smith and all the gentlemen of extended
influence throughout the South, whose efforts
since the termination of the war have been ex.
erted to restore peace and quietness, be severely
cepsured, while the character of the South
ern Loyalists" met his approval. He was OPP
posed to gradations in society, and said that
with the exception Of some Of the double + vs.
none in the South could trace their genealogy
hack for five generations without being in dan
ger of discovering that their ancestors were as
much slaves as those liberated by the procla
nation Of the deceased Lincoln, which he,
Hamilton: had advised that President not to
revoke. He said that queling rebellion
without publishing some one after it was quell
ed was not to be thought Of, but that one thou
sand Of the leading rebels should have been so
marked and expatriated that ten thousand
others would have been scared into leaving the
country with them.
This, it must be confessed, was a novel ap |
plication of the ide9 that if rat is caught and
snged by fire, and turned loose, all the other
rats infesting his locality will be scared away.
He advised his hearers to bind themselves
together, and stick to their friends from the
North; and closed by stating that 1 community
always finds out it's best men, and honors them
accordingly; which, assertion some Of his audi
Tors thought had been examphfed in the
treatment the speaker receives from his own
community
After vote of thanks had been rendered the
speaker by Mr. } ohm Hawkshurst, and accepted
and collection taken up to pay for gas, the
assemblage dispersed.