Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1868-01-17

not yet come. A young negro who must
have been uninstructed in the sacredness
of constitutional guarantees, the rights of
property, &C., &C., feloniously distracted
himself from his master in neighbor-
ing New York town, and conveyed the
chattel personal to our village where
he was at work when said master, with
due process and following, came over to
reclaim and recover the goods. / never
saw so large muster of men and boys
SO suddenly on our village green as his
advent melted; and the result was a
speedy disappearance of the chattel, and
the return of his master, disconsolate and
niggerless, to the place whence he came.
Everything on our side was impromptu
and instructive; and nobody suggested
that envy or hate of the South" or of
New York, or the master, had impelled
the rescue. Our people hated injustice
and oppression, and acted as if they
couldn't help it.
Another fresh recollection of those far
off days concerns our Poultney celebra-
tion of the fiftieth anniversary of Amer
ican Independence. / know we still
celebrate the Fourth of July; but it does
seem to me that the glory has departed.
In those times we had always from twen-
ty to fifty Revolutionary soldiers on the
platform-veterans of 10 to ninety years,
in whom the recurrence of the nations
anniversary seemed to rekindle "the light
of other days" The semi-centennial Gel
ebration brought out these in full force
the gatherings were unusually large and
the services impressive; since few of
those present, and none of the veterans,
could hope to see its repetition. The
Declaration of Independence sounded
far less antediluvian than it now does ];
the quarrel of the colonists with King
George, if not recent, was yet real and
the old soldiers forgot for day their
rheumatism, their decrepitude, and their
Poverty, and were proud of their by-gone
hardships and their abiding scars. l
doubt that Poultney has since been SO
thrilled with patriotic emotion as on the
4th Of July, 1926; and when we learned
few days later that John Adams and
Thomas Jefferson, the author and cham
,pion of the Declaration, had both died
on that day, and that the messengers
bearing South and North respectively the
tidings of their decease had met in Phil
adelphia, under the shadow of that Hall
in which our Independence was declared,
it seemed that Divine attestation had
solemnly hallowed and sanctifed the
anniversary by the impressive ministra-
ton of Death.
/ Our paper was intensely Adams and
Clay before and in the Presidentialstruggle
of 1928, and our whole community SYM
pathized with its preference. The defec-
tion of our States foremost politician,
Gov. Cornelius P. Van Ness, after he
had vainly tried, while protesting to be
an Adams man, to vault from the Gov
ernor's chair into the q. S. Senate, Great
ed passing ripple on the face of the
current, but did uot begin to stem it. A
few active yet unpopular politicians went
over with him but the masses stood firm,
especially in our section, where the infu-
ence of Hon. Rollin c. Mallary, our rep
resentive in Congress, was unrivalled.
The jackson party nominated him for
Congress but that did not affect his
position, nor much affect his vote, which
in any case would have been nearly unan-
imous. We Vermonters were all Protec-
tionists and Mallary, was the foremost
champion of our cause in the House. He
made speech in Poultney the evening
before the election, when, though the
omens were sinister, we still hoped that
Adams might be reelected. The Jack
son paper nearest us headed its Electoral
Ticket, For Gen. Jackson and Pro
tective Tariff" and jackson men all over
the North and West protested that their
party was as decidedly for Protection as
ours; pointing to the attitude Of
Pennsylvania, at once that leading Pro-
tectionists and the strongest Jackson
State; but we could not help seeing that
all the Free Traders were for jackson
that Calhoun was running with him for
Vice President and that South Carolina
was threatening Notification and forcible
resistance if the Protective policy were
not abandoned; and we concluded that
either Pennsylvania or Carolina must be
cheated, and that the latter would take
good care not to be. So Mr.. Mallary
urged us to stand fast by those whom we
knew to be devoted to our cherished pol
icy, rather than try those whose profes
sions were discredited by notorious facts
and the response in our section was en-
| Da,ltnax, ..ax-o ,,axt Jo,- 90