The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-06-27
SPEECH OF JUDGE KELLEY.

bors and constituents am profoundl
grateful for this demonstration of your al
fectionate interest. l never knew how sa
cred that word home, SO felicitously uttered
by Mr.. Pierson was, until during my recen
absence from you. When covering betor
more than a hundred bullets, or while IN.
body was sheltered from them by those o
two negroes, who periled their lives to saw
mine, l realized how dear were home, KIN
dred and friends. I left you at the invita-
ton of the Governor of Louisiana and the
Mayor of New Orleans, to visit that distant
State and city, hoping that L might serve
cur distracted country, and eager TO view
that nearly one-half of our cis-Mlsslssippl
territory from which, by reason OF my love
of personal liberty, had so long been ex-
Guided. I did not dream of danger. Others
smoke of it. but scofed at the idea.
went bearing no hatred to any man; but
believing that the truths which for the last
eleven wears have been in the habit of pro-
claiming to you, would be specially useful to
the people of that section, gladly awaited
myself of the opportunity of uttering them
kindly and courteously in their midst; and,
my friends, throughout my extended excur-
sion was received with all the kindness
and courtesy the people were able to bestoW
upon me wherever 1 went, save in one city
I, therefore, beg you not to charge the muir
cerous spirit of the Mobile mob to the
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
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
enue 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 all article on the day preceding my arri-
val, every allegation, in which Col. Mann
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-
~ scene, let me say that the outbreak was
provoked by no indiscreet word of mine
1t had been planned before l went to the
meeting, if not before 1 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
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. l have never been a soldier or sought
reputation at the lannon's mouth, and very
freely admit that, when the bullets were
whizZilg by and patterlng against the wall
behind me, I would have thanked Almighty
God for bullet-proof table under which to
creep.
In Memphis, the people of which I adj
dressed before going to New Orleans, the ell
egant opera house was crowded. My au-
dience represented every shade of complex
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.
Had been in some signal respect the ma
TONS benefactor, [ could not have been more
honorcd in New Orleans than was during
my four days stay in that thousand of her
people in lafayette Square, I was generously
entertained by (among others former citic-
zen of Philadelphia, three of whose sons
had served and one had fallen in the Confed-
crate army. From many such l received
thanks for the frankness and courtesy of my
speech.
Leaving Mobile on a government boat,
which, may remark, was provided for me
not at my request, but because General Shep-
pard, the Post Commandant, concurred in
the judgment of the Union men of Mobile,
that my friends and I 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 1850. Though pursued by the malignant
falsehoods of the Mobile papers, 1 felt as safe
and spoke as frankly in Montgomery as
now 10 at the Threshold of my home.
addressed the citizens from the rear of
the capitol. The meeting numbered about
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.
To comply with this request was impossi-
bic, and I started next morning for Atlanta,
GA, beautiful and prosperous city, which,
by its sudden rise from its ashes exceeds the
tabled Phoenix. 1t is rapidly fulfilling its
destiny, and becoming a great railroad and
commercial centre. We arrived there toward
the close of a bright Sunday afternoon, and
were received at the depot by committee
OF prominent citizens, and thousands of col
ored people, in their clean, gay Sunday at
tire. The next morning we visited the
Storrs school for freedmen, and, large as is
my familiarity with the schools of the
North, am free to say that I have never
seen classified school superior to this. In
the afternoon l 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 many who
gathered around me was an offer by the |
Quartermaster General of the Confederate
State OF Georgia, to pay my expenses if |
would remain in the State and address the |
people of every county.
My engagements in North Carolina. reoui- |
red my early departure and we left the next |
morning On arriving at Augusta, we were
met by Mayor Blodgett and at the Planters
10 oh ho