Wilmington journal., 1876-07-21
flowed with such violence that it was

COSnlZou on tu6 IumuiGuOuS waters
was the CHEEKY bark of THOMAS SETTLE
gliding on SO calmly and smoothly,
that even had it held that poor girls un-
fortunate babe, its slumbers would have
been undisturbed. The people who
for four years had made war upon you,
the same people against whom four
years before, you had SO valiantly
taken up arms were now triumphant.
The winning side that for four years
had been marching, on was actually
here at last and no mistake ard you
were again jubilant.
A Convention, so-called. assembled
and you We're one of its PROMINENT mem
bers. It met in that same Commons
Hall where you told the chaste and
pathetic story of that poor girl. In
that same Commons Hall, for the Can
by Constitution had not then changed
its name, it was again my fortune to
be present when you made another
celebrated speech, that in which you
confessed yourself conscious traitor
to your flag and to your country. But,
though a conscious traitor. you denied
that you had been willing traitor. You
declared that when you stood by the
dying bed of your honored father, no
greater agony wrenched your soul than
that you felt when you abandoned the
old flag. You did not repeat the
story about the poor girl, but it is
needless to say I was forcibly remind
ed of the time when heard you con-
TESS and recanG your treason to the
old Democratic party. I stood and
listened to you that day, my face
burning with shame that such words
could be uttered in such place and
no man dare make reply! Yet SO 1t
was. That speech will never be for
gotten Captain Traitor Settle! The
people of North Carolina do not love
traitors. But still you thrived. You
were made Speaker of the Senate and
YOU were again elected Solicitor for
district, and as you went from county
to county you left strife and discord in
your wake, neighbor against neighbor
and brother against brother. You
became a merciless prosecutor and
relentless prosecutor of those who. like
yourself had fought against the old
flag.
Time rolled on. You were now
"loyal man. though not yet Radical.
In the fall of 1867 a convention of your
new brethren was held in Tucker Hall
in Raleigh and adopted such extreme
views that division was made and
for short time there was hope that
few would return to their senses. 1t
was so frequently reported that you
we're opposed to Radicalism, and that
the smell of the negro was offensive
to your aristocratic white nostrlls, that
I looked with some confidence to hear
your third recantation. But the
threatened division failed, for COL
ored suffrage came and Of course
you and the negroes then joined
the Radical party. Reconstruction
and Radicalism were then iubilant and
SO were you. Excelsior" was your
motto. Upon the sweaty backs of
your sable brethren, you who had only
been Solicitor, mounted to a seat on
the bench of the Supreme Court of
North Carolina. Nor might you be
blamed. If negro could be voter
might not traitor be Judge Your
judgment and foresight were admira-
BILE in matters political, and why
might not you as readily foresee the
winning side in legal contest as the
winning side in political contest
And then, too, ToURGEE had induced
the Convention to abolish all that legal
lumber about pleading. and law and
equity, of which the heads of GAsToN,
and HENDERSON, and RUFFIN used to
he so full. And SO it was. With aristo-
cratic instinct you at once got above
the common negro herd. Nor were
you out of place. for when SETTLE be-
came Judge, party became law, PEARSON
also and politics were one and INSOFAR
able. RoDMAN too and READE were al
ways ready to obey partizan behests.
You were no worse than the rest-and
10 better.
Time rolled on. The terrible
Kirke war came on and with it came
the crowning shame of your life. Men
might forget that you were selfish and
time serving; might forget that you
had betrayed and abandoned every
political party that you ever belonged
to; they might bury in oblivion the
remembrance that you shamefully
shirked when your native land, that had
SO honored you, ,w&s invaded by merc1-
less foe; they might forget that you
confessed and publicly called yourself
traitor; might overlook your alliance
with negroes and your association with
vile carpet -baggers who overran your
State, but never SO long as you and
they shall live, will citizens of North
Carolina either forget Or forgive your
shameful conduct when yoa q sworn
Judge, sworn to administer the law
honestly and impartially, abandoned
them, in the hour of their extremity, TO
the mercy of Kirke and his cut -throats
When you and your Radical brethren
on the bench in real or pretended fear
crouched down before Kirke's insolent
gibes like pack of whipped ours, you
set your own seals to your
own shame and to your own
infamy. Did you fear or
did yoQ only feign to fear In
1860 you hesli&Sed not to take u arms