The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1874-01-16
Caleb Cushing.

AS W nnams went gown SaleD Cus0S
ing, "the great Massachusetts lawyer"
came up for Chief Justice of the United
States. From the following article
which we clip from late number of the
New York Sun, 1t will be seen that Ca
leb is not such big gun as many peoe
pie suppose him to be:
MIR. Gushing is conspicuous case of
man without principles and convictions,
who has lived and prospered for seventy
odd years less by reason of his intellec>
tual gifts, which are by no means mira :
cuiOus, or his requirements in learning,
which might be more available for every
day service if they were smaller, than of
the ease with which, being embarrassed
by none of the moral weights which clog
the movement of men Of conscience, he
has transferred his serviceable powers
from failing parties to rising ones, from
the weak side Of cause to the strong, or
to that which he thought to be so
In Congress, forty years ago, be was
the friend and follower Of Clay and the
reviler of jackson and ali of his meas
ures. But few years later be was the
eulogist of Jackson, the champion of the
v.
and the scurriIous defamer of Clay. He
voted in the House for nearly every bill
that President Tyler vetoed, and then,
with complaisance that was quite mar
velous until his appointment to the
Chinese mission jingled the controlling
thirty pieces in the public ear, he sus-
tanned with his voice and vote the vetoes
of his pet measures as fast as they were
sent in. His assaults on the Democratic
party during Van Buren's term, when it
was far less open to honest attack than
it became afterward, were violent and
elaborate beyond those of any of his
Wing allies. Having denounced with
unsparing vehemence for years the poll
cy that eliminated in the war with Mex
leo, he was not above soliciting a com
mand in the army sent to overrun the
people whom be had persistently por'
trayed as innocent and helpless. 1t ia
fair to say, however, that having, in his
ignorance of horse flesh, purchased a
sseed for the campaign whose taste were
not martial, and which had a way of
either throwing his master just before a
battle, or of running away with him dura
ing it's heat, MIR. Cushing's hands and
conscience are stained with little if any,
innocent Mexican blood
For long period of his life, stretch
ing from those ferVid years of youth in
which his passionate admiration for him
self was expressed in anonymous letters
to the public prints of his own composi>
ton, to the calmer middle age when he
put his talents on the market and became
known as a man always to be had by the
side that could pay best, he was an abo-
litiOnist, and talked about " the lords of
the whip, the chair, and the branding
iron, with as much seeming zeal and
sincerely as arrison himself Yet he
lived to sit in the Cabinet of Franklin
Pierce, where be outstripped even Jeffer
son Davis in his zeal for the extension of
slavery and every other mad scheme
| that he conceived might strengthen him
before the South as a candidate for the
Pres dency. But his servility was over
done, and failed to excite anything but
contempt among the Southern people,
who soGrly accepted his hireling service,
yet scorned the uI principled soul that
profered it as heartily as did his own
Massachusetts, which long since disown-
/ him, after the firing on Sumter, he af
| fected, while 10 " Washington, to be In
cordial sympathy with secession, and was
in close communion with the most active
rebels, who fondly laid their hot heads
against his in secret council. He went
| 80 far In his zeal as to stop his ears, one
| day, in April, 1861, when a Government
! band was playing q Hail Columbia" de-
| claring that Dixie" and Dixie" only
was the music for him. But, beholding
the wOnderOus and unexpected rising OF
the North, be posted to Boston to make
a speech, IN which his rebelIious infi-
mates were astonished to find themselves
! denounced as traitors, p1rricides, land
pirates, and by other pretty names that
they never suspected to exist in the vo-
cabulary of the crafty Caleb More than
this, he applied to Gov Andrews for q
commission to lead Massachusetts troops
against his beloved brethren of the
South; but, in spite OF the fact that be
had seen some service in Mexico which
entitled MIN to consideration as a militia
~ man, the Governor spurn d his appli,
cation. lie deemed him competent
enough perhaps to drill troops, bot be
was doubtful which way in a pinch be
might direct their guns
as a lawyer Mr.. Cushings fame il MOI
great lie may sperhaps be extensively
learned in the reading Of that profession
but he has never displayed any capacity
vince courts or juries. Judgement war
given against the United States in every
California land case that be appealed
and argned when Astorney>Generai In,
deed, he can lose a good case with more
elaborate and Industrious continuance
than any other man 10 the American bar
He can furnish a ruined client witt
reasons innumerable why he should have
gained his cause, but he somehow fails
and haa always failed to get these effect
lively impressed on the right people at the
right time. The litigsnt who learns
that Cushing is employed against him al
ways feels safe from that hour. If mi
own lawyers are weak and unequal tC
winning battle against skilled oppo'
nent, he can rely with perfect confidenc'
on Mr. CushiRgs practiced dexterity il
giving away the side of which he under
takes to be champion.
Since the accession Of Grant to the