The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1870-08-28


doubts Concerning Patrick Henry"
If the monthly periodical called the
Gdldcy had an editor possessing tolera-
BILE acquaintance with American history,
it could not have published such q tissue
Of blundering statements and stupid
speculation as appears in its September
number under the title we hnve copied.
The article is display of splenetic and
almost spiteful detraction by writer
who has exhibited his fecundity in that
vein in respect to several more recent
public characteristic. Edward A. Pol
lard, author of ''The Lost Cause Re-
gained" and other vituperative works.
Mr.. Pollard undertakes to show, in the
September Galdry, that Patrick Henry,
''the forest-born Demosthenes, las BY
ron called him. was no orator, but only
vulgar stump-speaker, "who had been
fattered and over-valued by country au-
diences," but was shamed into silence
when he had opportunities to speak be-
fore trained judges and able men. Mr..
Pollard says that this orators greatest
triumphs ''were won in comparatively
obscure places" that "they we're mostly
affairs OF the County meeting and local
gathering;" and that there is no reason
why the estimate of the people of Char
lotte should be accepted by mankind"
We will copy what Mr.. Pollard regards
as one of his strongest arguments:
The most important fact in his life
which touches this question is one but
slightly estimated by his partial biogra-
pher. 1t is that this man, for whom so
much has been claimed as m orator, sat
for two years in the Continental Congress,
when the early questions of the revolu-
tion we're being debated, when the most
inspiring themes were appealing to mind
and heart-sat for these two whole years
without ever venturing to speak once to
an assembly so we'll qualified to hear
him, if he had indeed been great
orator, and so we'll disposed to entertain
him, if indeed great reputation had
preceded him. If the delegate from
Virginia was really the incompatible
orator that had infiamed the House of
Burgesses at Williamsburg, how could ho
have remained for two years this figure
tions calculated to stir mems hearts to
their depths required him to speak? It
is the quality of true eIoquence that it
cannot contain itself, that it dares all
assemblies, that it recognizes the variety
and numbers of it's audiences only to
draw inspiration from them Was
Patrick Henry afraid of tho reputation
he had made on obscurer occasions in
Virginia? Did he fear to risk it before
on assembly which Lord Chatham de-
clared to exceed intellectually and parlia-
ment in Europe? Was he another in
stance of that phenomenon which we
see so habitually in our meaner Congress
of to-day; men coming there with great
tions of their constituents, and never
being heard of afterwards? We will not
pursue these painful, yet obvious and
unavoidable surmises; yet certain it
seems, if Patrick Henry had been The
orator represented by his biographer, he
would not, could not, have been the
silent, undistinguished, in fact, eetin-
guisAed man he was in Congress.
Patrick Henry had sat in Congress
from 1774 to 1776. He declined re-
election, along with George Washington,
who had been equally q ''silent" mem
Der of this high assembly; but for Wash
ington there was, of course, the excuse
that he made no pretensions to elo-
quence
If Mr.. Pollard and the GALAXY will per-
NIT us, there are two slight circum-
stances which somewhat impair the force
of this argument The first is that Pat
rick Henry, instead OF sitting two years
in the Continental Congress, sat in it less
than two months, or, to be exact, from
the 4th of September to the Goth of Oc-
tober, 1774. The other circumstance is
that, instead Of never vcnturing to open
his mouth in such presence, he made
the very first and altogether the most i'm
pressivo and electrifying speech deliver
cd in that body. Bishop White, then a
young clergyman, listened to it, and af-
forwards gave graphic description of
the appearance of the orator, and the
marvellous effect OF tho speech.
We copy another display of Mr.. Pol
lard's ignorance:
Mono of the uttcrances Of On orator so
famous and SO modern survive; we have
not one of his actual speeches.; there are
no literary remains of the man; none of
tho words really and truly spoken by him
havo come down to us, if we may except
few detached sentences, of which the
authenticity, as of literal report, is not
clearly avowed, or, if 80, is essentially
doubtful It is altogether m exception