The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1871-02-02

WOOSTER CELEBRATION OF TIL
BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. JANU
/ AIRY 9TH 1871, IN RESPONSE TO TIL
r FIRST REGULAR TOAST. q ANDREW
I JACKSON" ad
I thank the committee for assigning
to me the response to this sentiment
The unfixed status of current politic
in the United States, does not invite :
! wise statesman to a discussion which
sudden but inevitable mutations il
men, parties, and issues may rendei
valueless. l invoke the discreet max
1 i'm of Sallust: Concerning Car
thage, better be silent than say too
little Ia times like these, inspiration
! might speak in the language of proph
ecy; but the tongue of the privat,
citizen, assuming no prescience, an6
compelled by no official responsibility
may rightfully observe a prudent reti
cence To the political gnats who
| people the popular sunbeams, perpet,
| ual activity may be essential to life
but to the true statesman, repose, like
sleep to the natural body, brings re.
newal of vitality and strength. ST.
lence is power. q" He is not dead, but
|.sleepeth.' i.sa issss.ssI eiaeg ss-nra'i ?,
P I know well, too, that these extend
ed preparations aud the magnificeDce
of this festival, are not for the ora
tor, but the occasion. Wherefore you
will pardon me if l disappoint the
expectations Of this assemblage.
The extraordinary events of the
last ten years hare nearly obliterated
from public recollection even, the ear
lier men and times of the Republic
Indeed there seems among the au-
thors, actors and finishers of the re-
cent revolution to be fixed purpose
and for obvious reasons, to ignore and
degrade these men and their deeds in
the eyes of the. present and the COM
ing generation, Said that pestilent
but splendid !" "blatherskite pardon,
L pray you, to the significance. of the
word, any odor of syulgarism which
ferring recently to writings and ora
tions which will endure and be read
as long as the English language is
spoken or studied: "you cannot Gull
from the whole six volumes of Web
ster's Speeches as much. of the culture
and spirit of this century, as you can
find in any one speech of the promi-
nent statesmanIo the 9day.'a HAT 70
E And yet through all time shall the
men of Seventy-six,o and of the first
and second generation succeeding
them, live, the real warriors, states
men, orators and patriots of Ameri-
ca. All the men of the present day
who followed in their footsteps and
who, from their example, learned the
lessons of courage, fortitude and true
patriotism, not loyalty and of pror
found reverence for Constitutions and
laws, and for the Union as it was, win
live forever in honor and glory; and
they who made the old Federal Re-
public of 'S9, and they who sustained
it, and they who, scorning the mob
and defiant of military, arrest, prison
and death, would have saved it in the
recent terrible convulsion, will in af-
ter ages be the heroes and martyrs of
American story and song. They will
live on canvas and in stone at the
hands of the future painters and
sculptors of America the drama of
remote ages will revive the story of
their lives while their names and
their memories, and their words and
their deeds, shall be dear to the inge-
nious youths of nations not yet born,
speaking languages not yet construct
ed. Such has ever been the testimony
of thepast anticipating the peIpetu-
ally recurring judgement of the dis
tant future. The successful actors in
civil war are never the chosen heroes
of history; and although the names
Brutus and Cato, and Marcellus were
for two hundred years forbidden to
the people, and their statues allowed
no place in Rome, yet to-day, as for
centuries past, they are far sdearer to
the memories of mankind than f" Cse-
sar with the Senate at his heels.
/ propose, tonight, neither ybiog-
raphy nor a eulogy of Andrew Jack
son but merely review, briefly, of
some among the most striking inci-
dents ofshis life, and especially of
those extraordinary characteristics
which made him one of the most re-
in history.
The amplest, most elaborate, most
of all his biegraphers,
has written that after years research
among newspapers, pamphlets speech |
es and books written of Andrew jack |
son previous to and during his politi-
;al career, by friends and foes,f he |
might we'll have described him as a /
patriot and traitor-the greatest of |
Generals, yet wholly ignorant OF the |
.rt of war; writer brilliant, elo-5
Iuent, yet incapable of ccmposing q
correct sentence, or spelling words of |
our syllables;; the most candid of |
men, yet the profoundest of dissem-l
olers; the first of statesmen, yet never |
levising,i never framing a public
Measure most aw-defying, yet law
citizen; stickler for disci- /
oline, but ever ready to Iadisobey9 his +
superior :; blood-thirsty, yet humane :;
ash to madness and prudent TO cow
lrdice; a Democratic autocrat: an ur-
pune savage an atrocious saint. Such,
90, was the Jackson of my boyhood
Ito the. men of his own party, little
lie worse than devil. Time and the
yrave have revealed him in his real
nature and character-a man, but one
If the honestestl and greatest of men.
Born as he himself believed, in t
South Carolina, tho birth place of great |
nen for century past; born it may
'eem to indicate, in North Carolina T
youth in the midst of the Revolution,
le early imbibed the sentiments and
,pirit of that period. A boy of thir-
cen9 years, The saw and in his own
person felt, the bloody horrors of the
march of Tarlton Rawdon aud Corn
wallis, through the Carolinas. AL
prisoner of war, he carried to- his
grave the wounds inflicted upon him
by a brutal officer because he refused I
@ perform a menial service, and saw
iis elder brother prostrated and dis
lbled by Q blow from the same hand,
inflicted because of o like refusal
I'll warrant" said an aged pelatiVe
If his, more than seventy years later,
Andy thought oft at New Orleans"
0f Scotch-Irish descent, he inherited