Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-01-24

"hOA nv was db l1c biul6 processing
unbounded friendship; that he was
the protege and crony Of Simon Cameron;
and appointed Secretary of War TO carry
out his policy; that being so appointed,
he did Loyalty and feloniously embezzle
public money to the amount of two hun
dred and fifty thousand dollars at one
time. 1t is true that you were actuated
by no malicious intent. You meant to
do him honor. According to your moral
apprehensions, all the evilyou ascribed
to him was good. When you wove for
him this disgusting "wreath of ULCERS
gone to seed, you thought yOuwere deco
rating his coffin with a chaplet of the
choicest flowers. You painted monster
of depravity, and you expected the Ameri-
can people to worship it with all the fer
vor of savages when they fall down to
adore the image of some hideous demon.
No doubt the Votive offering of your af-
lection took this anomalous form because
you believed that duplicity and crime en-
ployed against Democrats would give him
the highest claim he could have on the
admiration of the sbolitionist and because
it did greatly Increase your own esteem
and regard for him. But my interest in
his reputation required that he should be
properly appreciated by that honest por-
ton of the people who still adhere to the
moral creed of their fathers. s-sa
-. WHAT SENATOR WILSON PROVES.
l do not assert that your last paper
proves nothing. l will give you the full
benefit of every fact you have established.
So far as you have shown Mr.. Stanton to
be guilty of the baseness you impute to
him, will make no contest about it.
But will not yield one inch to any allie
cation of yours unsupported by evidence.
l will try to save out of your hands as
much of his character as you have not
already destroyed by credible evidence.
My effort was to take him down from the
pillory to which you had nailed him by
the ears as ga fx'd figure for scoru to
point its finger at" You have done your
strongest to oppose my rescue of him,
and any partial success which may have re-
warded your struggle must be a great
comfort of which cannot justly deprive
you. We will examine your evidence
and see upon what points you have made
out your case, and wherein you have
come short of your aim.
You asserted that Mr.. Stanton had been
from his earliest youth an abolitionist in
his secret heart that to leading men of
that party he declared himself in entire
agreement with them, and hoped for the
time to come when he could aid them.
In other words, he gave in his perfect ad-
hesion to them, concurred in their views
of public morality, and was willing to
promote their designs against the Federal
and State governments whenever he could
make himself most efficient to that end.
At the same time he was in the Democrat
ic party by virtue of his declared faith in
exactly the opposite sentiments. To US
he made himself appear Democrat of
the most ultra class. do not say that
he was an active propagandist; but all
Democrats with whom he spoke were i'm
pressed by the seeming strength of his
attachment 10 those great principles
by the application of which they
hoped to save the Union from dissolution,
the country from civil war, and
the liberties of the people from the de-
struction with which your ascendancy
threatened them We took him on his
word, believed him thoroughly, and gave
him honor, Office, and high trusts. Now
man may be an honest Democrat or a
sincere abOlitionist, but he cannot hon
estly and sincerely be both at the same
time. Between those two parties the
hostility was deadly. Each recognized
the other as mortal foe. They were as
far agsunder as the poles on every point
of principle and policy. They differed
not merely about rules for the interpreta-.
ton of the organic law, but opposed each
other on the broad question whether that
law was entitled to any obedience at all.
One of them respected and reverenced
the constitution as the best government
the world ever saw, while the other de-
nounced it as an agreement with death
and covenant with he'll, which it was
meritorious even for its sworn officers
to violate. If we loved any portion of it
more than another, it was that part which
guarded the individual rights of the peo-
pie by habeas corpus, jury trial, and
other great judicial institutions, which
our ancestors on both sides of the Allan
tic had shed So much of their blood to
establish and it was precisely those pro-
visions which had your bitterest eamity,
and which you made the first use of your
power to abolish, trsmple down, and de-
stroy. Mr.. Stanton could not have been
truly on more than one side of such a
controversy he could not serve God
and Mammon both, he could not be for
the constitution and against it TOO; ne
could not at once believe and disbelive
in the sanctily of an oath to support it.
He professed most fervently to be heart
and soul with US. II he also professed
to be with you, he was wretched hypo-
critic. If he kept up this fraudulent de-
ceit for thirty years, and thereby got the
highest places in the gift of both parties,
he was ''the most marvellous lmpostor
that ever lived or died. "
When your first article appeared, l did
not believe that you had any ground for
this shocking imputatiOn upon his char
acter. | was compelled to disbelieve and
contradict it, for asOns which were then
given and need not now be repeated. But
said the testimony of the Chief Justice
would silence my denial. The Chief
uSblCG udS SIChCu OuN 1ld Jun
assertion. You do prove by him dec
laration from the lips of Mr.. Stanton,
made nearly thirty years ago, from which
the inference is fair one that he was in
the Democratic party with intent ''to be-
tray the Constitution and his friends into
the cruel clutches of their enemies" when
ever he could find an opportunity.
STATIONS DUPLICITY.
In all the conflict of the Buchanan adj
ministration with the abolitionists and
their allies, he was an open-mouthed OPP
ponent of the latter. He was always
sound on the Karsas question, and faith
full among the faitbless on the Lecomp-
ton constitution. So far as we, his Dem
ocrstic associates, were permitted TO know
him, no man detested more than he did
the knavish trick of the aboliGOnists in
preventing a vote on slavery by which 1t
would have been expelled from Kansas,
and the whole trouble settled in the way
they pretended to wish. He was out
and out for Breckenridge in 1860, and
regarded the salvation of the country as
hanging on the forlorn hope of his cleo
ton. To Mr.. Buchanan himself, and to
the members of his cabinet, he paid the
most assiduous court, and was always
ready for an occasion to serve them, and
eborod his devOtioD in WAYS which