The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-05-20
JACOB THOMPSON.

JACOB lnOMPSON.
From, the ~ y. Tribune
The day should have been sad but ousn;cious
when that old man. Jacob Thompson returned
to his home in Mississippi not long aTo Wind
and wave of the stormiest politics we have oyer
known had washed him away from his moor
ings; years spent in iron-heartcd cOnniyance as
to the best means of putting the iron into our
souls had separated him from the tenderest nsso-
Citations of planters life: wanderings to and fro
in the earth seeking what he might deyour of
loyalty and patriotism had made him n sadder
and slower man and at last he YEARLY returned
to the friends of his youth. There is something
touching and even tragic; rs Mr.. CARLYLE would
say, in this return of Jacob THOMPSON Like
Mr.. Rogers old man, he had been LONG wander
ing, here and there, ''in quest of something
something he could not fnd-he knew not what"
Perhaps it was the Union of our fathers
He may have come to deposit his bones i'm the
land of his ancestors, and among the scenes
of his childhood, as some of his contemporaries
have done. "Ihe old man, says the solemn Mr.
Toodles, ''went to his grave and-he died
there 1t is not the fashion with our clever old
men to go to their graves and stay there, though
the national flag is always provided for waving
over them in case of emergency. But we think
of all old men when we think of that old man
Jacob Thompson come again. Here is this vene-
rable man, greyer and coonier than ever, come
to revisit those sepulchral institutions of his
birth from which his departure was like a kind
of resurrection-come to talk to his neighbors
the Mississippans, and to be once more fami-
liarly called Jake by the vulgar and it may
be Old Jake. We repeat. there is some
thing touching and even tragic in this. His
ghost, if need be, must be laid, and not veXed
but we dare say there is life in the old man
yet.
Jacob Thompson is not the man to take odds
of us on the side of sympathy. He would not
thank us for our pity; he would take no sub
scrptiOn of us in grieying over his amentablc
past; he would make no Acknowledgement of the
expense of our sensibilites in Welcoming with
nr lt lpt11 t1,p Of
such wilful and mischievous prodigal of other
peoples property as himself. Still, we pity
Jacob Thompson. We cannot help remember
ing that, in trying to steal a great many States
out of the Union, he got hold of the rabdest
kind of elephant, and that he has suffered well
as the rest of us. We cannot fOrbGar rejecting
that shrewd, worldly-wise men like Jacob
Thompson might have done better than en-
ployed slavery as Il battcring-ram against the
pillars of the Union, mt the cost of hundreds of
thousands of lives, worth more than that deadly
institution which men of his kind insisted upon
upholding or themselves perishing. Mr.. Thomp
son has even been suspected in the matter OF
burning steamboats, and in the dubious scandal
of promoting the smallpox as an element in the
publication and salvation of peoples. But we hide
these and other shades of his reputation in our
general cOmmseratiOn Of the fact that he has
suffered much and our melancholy pleasure that
he-an old man, a little more serious than wont,
more humbled before the general Providence
which dispOsCs of men and natiOns-mOre kindly
once contemplated only in bitterness of soul
has come among us once more
We take it to be no unmeaning sentiment
when man of Jacob Thompsons vicsstudes
confesses to his ultimate and imperishabc love
of country. We would rather not entertain
such thought as that any possible opportunity
would start the old agent of the Rebellion up
again into what Union people have been used to
calling treason. He cheerfully avows that in the
late war 'the power of arms decided that we
should remain one people now and forever
and that 1t was the common duty of his fellow
citizens to 'meet the actualities of life with
brave, cheerful, and manly heart, submitting to
the inevitable" He thinks that great destiny
awaits the people of America, ''and we must
contribute our part in working it out" More
over, we feel obliged to Mr.. Thompson for
saying so well that, though he had gone to the
tombs of the mightest peoples, and though
he learned many valuable lessons, still a deep
| melancholy followed him and weighed down
| his spirits. He could never forget that he was
an American, could never help repeating the
| paraphrased expression of the pOet-"America,
| with all thy faults, / love thee still" He was
| never tempted to change his nationality; for,
whatever he had suffered in it, he thought his
| own country the best in the world. SO has
| thought many q Briton after war; and many n
| Gaul in exile; but we especially thank such
| man as Jacob Thompson for these concessions.
| Yes, Mr.. Thompson, and so do we all think this
country of ours the best on the planet-the best
to earn in, to spend in to work in, to scheme IN,
| to live in, to die in-the best in the world for
| Southemers and Northerners, for Lee and for
| Grant, for Stephens and Sumner, for Jacob
| Thompson and Frederick Douglass And with
| all you faults Jacob Thompson, we shall do our
| best to love you and yOurs-tO give you the
heartiest hand we may if you carc-to give you
| the greeting of plough and spade, of labor and
liberty trusting that in right time all things VIII
| be made quite whole again, if one and all OF us
shall have quite learned to accept the situation
manfully, and go to work with will
|