Vicksburg weekly herald. (Vicksburg, Miss.) 1868-1883, 1870-03-19
PROPHECY ANB HISTORY.

We read ct this season in the
good book that prophecies fail"
and tongues cease" but charity
never does. Under the new Rad.
ical dispensation, however, we
a different rule, and, while
charity is postponed or thrust
prophecies are in full force
and wicked tongues wag. Wit
ness what occurred the other day
on the occasion Of the negro
''revel' in the Senate. just be.
fore the deed was c~onsummated,
Mr.. Cameron, Of Pennsylvania
he whom Lincoln turned out Of
his Cabinet,) rose in his place
and sOlemnly announced the i'm.
portant historical fact that when
Davis, in 1861, vacated
his seat in the Senate, he Came.
ron told him Davis that, when
next filed, 1t would be by q ne.
gro. And then Cameron, like an
cient StmeOa-not Simon, who
was by no means an exemplary
character, and had an eve to the
main chance-uttered q aUnc dim.
ittis, and announced that, in the
induction Of a negro, he "had
seen his salvation" This is the
Cameronian version Of fulfilled
prophecy, and very touching and
picturesque it 10.
The Newark Daily Advertiser
usually q vel. Informed, and
always an intelligent paper-thus
describes what we take TO be the
same incidedt
Ten years ago Mr.. Jefferson Da-
Wis, Senator from the State Of Mis-
sissippi, deserted bis seat IN the
senate 10 become the President of
the Confederate States. AS he
passed out Of the Chamber, he re-
marked to Senator Cameron, Of
Pennsylvania, that his successor
would probably be u negro. The
prophecy has become q fulfllment.
During all the intervening decade
no Senator has sat from Mississippi
until yesterday q negro took the
place vacated by Davis. The event
is one Of historical importance.
Here is What lawyers would call
a fatal yariaace-uot between diie
gaia and probdtd, but between the
probate themsclves-and il is very
far from our design To reconcile it.
We prefer, for 4 moment, to specu.
late IN the alternative.
Jefferson Davis, leaving the
Senate, as every one knows be
did, sadly and reluctantly, looked
to the future with that p~rescience
OF misery and evil which all pa.
triotic men had, let the contest
end as il might. He knew-no
one better-irom his military ex-
perience not merely as o soldier
but as a cabinet minister, what
we're the inevitabilities OF war
and however in the heat Of actual
conflict, with the light of coca.
sional victory shining delusively
upon him, he may have chafad
himself, as II we're, into c)nf.
dcnce, yet, before the contest be.
gan, he must have felt and did
feel that the cause to which he
honestly sacrificed himself would
be ultimately a losing one and
then, shaking hands with Mr..
Cameran, as we believe he did, he
solmnlysaid THE price of all
the blood that is abou, to be
"shed will be, not any great pub.
''lic or national benefit, but mere.
''ly thai q negro-illiterate and
"brutal-shall be placed in the
'seat i now resign This is YER.
flied prophesy in one view of the
facts. Now for the other.
Simon Cameron--a proslavery
Democrat down to 1855, when his
personal antipathy to Mr.. Blu.
chanan drove him to the support
OF Fremont; q rich prosperous,
not IN unamiable man, who in his
heart was no sentimental aboli-
ZIONIST, and who did not care half
as much for the negro, individu.
ally or in mass, as for the Middle.
town Bank or the Northern Cen.
tral-takes a jaunty, cxultant view
the coming strife, and, shaking
his farewell finger at the retiring
Southron, tells him that "the pen
atty OF secession will be, not that
slavery shall be abolished, or any
great social or political result en-.
sue, out that Southern pride, and
especially his Mr.. Dayis's,) shall
be humbled by putting a negro in
his place And that done, he
For the sake of hannah
nature, we sincerely hope the
Newark story is the true one, and
that Davis, not Cameron, was the
prophet.
For our part, we take no stock
n the canting sentimentalism that
lffects to discern the finger Of a
Providence in the fact that
Rerels sits in the seat Of JeiFer.
ION Davis. a negro in the Sen