Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1868-08-20
Thaddeus Stevens.

bonum" has ordinarily proved itself a
sound and proper one; but it was re-
served for Radicalism to reverse it at
least in one instance, as it has sought to
reverse and revolutionize every other. As
public man, inspired by those deep in
stincts of malignity to which he has SO
many times confessed, the late Thaddeus
Stephens personally appealed to no ones
Christian belief or sentiments of human
ity. He placed himself purposely outside
the pale of common sympathy, and prided
himself on the position. His ideas of
government were the growth Of an utter
want of faith in his fellow-man. and of a
malignity which was nursed until it con-
verted its possessor into a moral mon
strosty The only mode of appeal to
others with which he was familiar was by
stormy threats and fendish denuncia-
tions. In the early part of his career,
his peculiar character manifested itself in
blendid boldness and cowardice which
enabled him to pass with his party for a
person of courage, while providing before
hand way of escape from serious danger.
All his life through he has been only a
rough, overbearing, storming, synical and
blaspheming advocate for Power.
Reason had no high seat in the action
of his nature. All his passions and pre-
Ijudices worked upon his faculties with
mob force, and his mind became sort of
lighting amphitheatre. The pure and dis
passionate ideas Of justice; Of right, of
sui eR Av aounano sslsame hesnitali.z there.
dows. Even in such proposition as that
Of founding free schools in the District of
Columbia, his distempered mind could
discern no benefit which did not some-
how spring from class hatreds. His very
philanthropy was malignity ITSELF And
| if that be SO, what was his revenge? ? For
the loss of his property at the hands of a
rebel soldiery, he would have confscated
the possessions, great and small, of the
entire Southern people, and swept them
all into the 9eeps of remorseless poverty.
He would trample their free local institu-
tions with the iron heel, and smite their
reviving hopes with the mailed hand.
The revenge whose sleeplessG fire burned
within his heart, would leave its desolat-
ing track in every city, town and hamlet
in the Southern country. When such a
man sets up for statesman, and when,
above all, he is conceded the leadership
of the party in possession of the Govern !
ment, few indeed are the hopes for the
perpetuity of that freedom which is estab-
lisbed in justice and protected by law.
Yet the body of the Radical party
openly accepted Thaddeus Stevens for its
guide and leader. and drew its inspira-
tions from his unholy lips. What he,ut-
tered they drank in as if it were the very
water of life to them. They attended him
as disciples focked around master.
They hung on the blistering. blasphemous
words that fell from him, and took fresh
courage from the apparant fearlessness of
a man who grew more fiendish as he drew
nearer to his end. They cheered him ;
they echoed his syllables; they bore him
in their arms they ran trembling TO- him
with the crack of his lash-like words; and
not one rose up to the protest, to oppose.
to defy him. From the Speakers plat
form in the Hall of Representatives be
boldly dared the Senate to falter in the
Radical plan of impeaching the Execu-
tive and voting for his removal. Still nc
syllable of reproof, f,-no word of protest
NOT so much as a murmur Of disap-
proval from his party. ..;a. -
What are we to think, what will history
say of men whose courage was SO puny al
this? How are they to claim the inches
Of statesmen, while their public lives are
signalized by nothing but servile ano
cowardly obedience to the stormy passions
the growing cynicism. and the superior
will of this departed embodiment of ma
lignity With what grace or truth are
they to write their names as leaders of
party protesting progress and philan-
thropy, whose sole ruler and leader was
notoriously the preacher of hate and he'll
How are they to hope for future gratitude
as the only advocates of Union, when
their unfinching master raises his hand
above his head and declares that the peo'
ple of the sovereign States should be con.
demned to the 'penitentiary OF hell,' and
guarded there by an impossible Gordon
of bsyonets /? m
But the Old Man is gone-who dares
say to his rest /? For such aspirit. whose
principle and germ of life was hatred ano
revenge, there is no place of rest known
) No one cares to explore the tempestuous