The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1878-07-25
THE MAN IN THE YELLOW CHAR
lot,

There is now travelling in the State OF
Georgia great yellow chariot, drawn by
four milk-white horses. Within it is a
little dried-up man, with ashen complex
ion, piercing eyes, and weight less than
one hundred pounds. His voice is thin
and sharp. Thirty years ago he was
supposed to be dying, and he is dying
still. But during all that time he has,
like the petrol, careered in every storm,
and always found Cosey resting place
when the elements subsidized. He has
been a most prolific writer, and an ever
lasting speaker, His speeches would fill
many volumes, and he has turned out of
his hands, at time when he could hard
ly hold pen, huge unreadable books Of
disquisition, to the sore discontinue Of
young students, and the great sorrow Of
Confding booksellers. At his house Of
Liberty Hall he has maintained COLO
quies extending through days, perhaps
weeks, (for we never read one of them
entirely through), and these burlesques
of crisp, pithy, serviceable modern in
terviews have not unfrequently found
publishers. When in the course of his
varied career he was the editor of news
paper-or rather of publication so styl.
ed for CONFERENCE.-The secondary edi-
torials were from nine to ten columns long,
and his readers eighteen to twenty.
When attending to his duties as Rep.
resentative in Congress, he is pushed
into the area before the Speakers desk
in wheeled chair, and there sits with
his hat on, and black servant behind
him.
He looks like a mummy painted white
and sprinkled with ashes, and talks with
the voice of Queen Cadence's chamber
lain. He was never young, and he will
never be older than he now is and he
has always been. He was in ancient
times a Wing, and he looks at things
through the speCtaCles he used then.
When Hayes undertook to blow the
trump of resurrection over the graves of
the departed Wing party, this appari-
ton of the past emerged from the place
of sepulChre, and presented the only re-
sponse.
When the histories of the two great
crimes against the American republic
the secession of 1851, and the Great
Fraud of l876-the name of Alexander
Il. Stephens will be conspicuous in each.
He was not originally in favor of seces-
sion. The prospects Of the movement
were not good in his eyes, He was de-
voted to the system of human slavery,
and, while he incidentally deprecated
the inevitable carnage and destruction,
it was the apprehension of losing the
enormous slave property of the South
that mainly affected him. He made
speech in which he demonstrated this
danger. 1t was called Union speech,
and gained him a great deal of unde.
served credit in some quarters. But it
was as Cold-blooded speech as ever fell
from human lips. "If you secede you
will lose your slaves; this mass Of hui
man beings now groaning under your
hands will be emancipated. Do not be
in hurry. The time has not come"
That was the substance of it. But when
secession came he became the Vice Pres
ident of the Confederacy, and made an.
other speech, in which he announced
that the cornerstone of the new Govern.
ment was, and ought to be, human sla.
very. This speech was only less barbar-
GUS than the other.
When, in March, 1877, triumphant
fraud was enthroned at Washington, Mr..
Stephens fell down on his face before it,
and he has never yet dared to look up.
He insists that because submission il
peace, there must be no resistance, phys
ical or moral. Our institutions have
been sub Terted, partly by force and part
ly fraud; 9 man Is set up TO rule us in OPP