The Portland daily press., 1872-08-14
What an ex.SOldier Thinks.
WEST WATERvILLE, Aug. IA, ISL

WEST WATERvILLR, Aug. H. 1872.
To the Editor of the Press:
Last evening our citizens were treated (?) to
discourse from the Hon. Mr.. Williams of
New York, who is going the rounds in the in
terest of Greeley and Brown. He labored
hard in the start, and in fact more than one
half of his speech was a labored production.
After that, when he had passed in review the
clasping of hands across the 'bloody chasm,"
and had eulogized the southern rebels for so
kindly ~ falling in with Greeley's nomination
at Cincinnati, he went to abusing Gen. Grant.
He had no lack of words then. Everything
having been studied and committed, he sue
succeeded in aunihilating the President and all
hiscabinet-probably to his own satisfaction.
If you have space, Mr.. Editor, and patience,
will briefly notice some points of Mr. Williams
discourse. speak from soldiers standpoint,
and if 1 rightly interpret the signs of the times
the grand old army is, to-day, as eight years
ago to-day, following their old leader. He
spoke of Mr.. Greeley as aiUays Republican,
dlaoays an abolitionist, alaoays for right and
justice. If your readers will turn to the 356th
page of Greeley's american Conflict" they
will find these words ''The asserted right of
secession is one. which no government or nation
ever did or can concedc without signing its own
death warrant" That is right. On that basis
nearly a million (of whom l was one) of our
fathers, sons and brothers, acted when they
left for a four years sojourn in southern chimes.
That sseund doctrine, and it would be we'll
for Mr. Williams argument if that was all Mr..
Greeley ever said about secession. But please
turn with me TO the 359th page (only three
pages over) and you will see these words: ''If
any one secs fit to mediate disunion let him
do SO unmolestcd. and few lines further
on-"If the cotton States shall insist that they
can do better out of the Union than in it we
insist (mind he insists ON letting them go in
peace. or, in other words, he would not have
nation rise with one grand, simultaneous out
burst of Indignation and patriotism, and,
through seas of blood, show the traitors that
there is such thing a government but sit
ting quietly down let them take our Sumters
Moultrics, seize our arms and ships, aud over
the desolated land erect their auction blocks
and whipping posts. But this is not all of
Honest Horace" Only few lines further on
he says: Aud whenever considerable sec
ton of our Union shall deliberately resolve to
go out, we shall resist all coercive measures de-
sighed to keep it." Always a Republican!
jeff. Davis, in his palmiest days, never uttered
more reasonable sentiments. This Mr. Will
lams says there is no doubt at all that Mr..
Greeley is a farmer. He said that his farm
Joined Mr.. Greeley's. He knew Horace was a
farmer for did he Greeley not come and work
on his trees every Saturday? Our Maine far
mers will here learn something new-that they
can be just as successful if they work every
Saturday!
Altogether it was the weakest political argu-
ment ever heard. Even the renegades and
Democrats say it was not what they expected
Let not our outside friends borrow any trouble
West Waterville is emphatically Grant vi
tage, and with an opposition composed of only
one or two renegade Republicans, in common
with the Democrotic element, we shall, in Sep
TENDER, stamp secession from principle and
party as emphatically as we did ten years ago
The most respectable portion of the soldier eie-
ment is strongly in favor of Gen Grant, and if
the opposition wish to see Grant and Wilson
overwhelmingly elected let them send their
WiAiamses (and their Kilpatricks) along every
day. SOLDIER.