The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1878-07-31
cuE MAN IN THE YELLOW CHA
RIOT.

of GeOlSi"J " o. '
drawn by four milk white horses.
within it is a little dried up man, with
asheu complexion, 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 be is dying still. But during all
that period he has, like the petrol, ca
reered in every storm, and always
found a cosey resting place when the
slements subsidized. He has been
most prolific writer, and an everlast-
iDr speaker. His speeches would fill
many volumes, and he has turned out
Of his hands, at time when he could
hardly hold q pen, huge, unreliable
books of disquisition, to the sore dis
comfture of young students and the
great sorrow of confding booksellers.
At his house of Liberty Hall he has
maintained colloquies extending
through days, perhaps weeks for we
never read one of them entirely
through, and these burlesques of the
crisp, pithy, serviceable modern inter-
views have not unfrequently found
publishers. When in the course of his
varied career he was the editor of
newspaper-or rather of a publication
so styled for CONFERENCE.-The secon.
dairy editorials were from nine to ten
columns long, and his leaders eighteen
to twenty. When attending to his du-
ties as Representative in Congress,
he is pushed into the area before the
Speakers desk in wheeled chair, aud
there sits with his hat on, and black
servant behind him.
He looks like q mummy painted
white and sprinkled with ashes, and
talks with the voice of Queen Cam
dace's chamberlain. He was never
young, and he will never be older than
he is now and has always been. He
was in ancient times Wing, and he
looFs at all things through the specta-
cles he used then. When Hayes un-
dertook to blow the trump of resurrec
ton over the graves of the departed
Wing party, this apparition of the
past emerged from the place of sepul-
chre, and presented the only response.
When the histories of the two great
crimes against the American Republic
the secession of 1861, and the Great
Fraud of l876-come to be written, the
name of Alexander H. Stephens will be
conspicuous in each. He was not
originally in favor of secession. The
prospects of the movement were not
good in his eyes. He was devoted to
the system of human slavery, and
while he incidently deprecated the in
evitable carnage and destruction, it
was the apprehension of losing the
enormous slave property of the South
that mainly affected him. He made a
speech in which he demonstrated this
danger. 1t was called Union speech
and gained him great deal of unde-
served credit in some quarters. But
it was as cold blooded speech as ever
fell from human lips. eff you secede
you will lose your slaves; this mass of
human beings now grooming under
your hands will be emancipated. Do
not be in hurry. The time has not
come" That was the substance of it.
But when the secession took place he
became the Vice. President of the Con-
federacy, and made another speech, in
which he announced that the corner
stone of the new government was, and
ought to be, human slavery. This
speech was only less barbarous than
the other.
When, in March, 1877, triumphant
fraud was enthroned at Washington,
Mr.. Stephens fell down on his face be-
fore it, and he has never yet dared to
look up. He insists that because sub
mission is peace, there must be no re-
sistance, moral or physical. Our insti-
tutions have been subyerted, partly
by force and partly by fraud; q man
is set up to rule us against the will of
the people; the swarm of loathsome
creatures who forget the successive
links of the fraudulent title are quar-
tered in public Office from the highest
to the lowest; the moral rot thus en-
gendered pervades every branch of
government, loosens the compact of
society, destroys confidence in the sta
bilisy ofgovernment or the safety of
business, leads unemployed labor to
the contemplation of violence, and
capital to call for the man of the
sword; but acceptance of this condi-
ton of things is momentary peace, aud
implies official favor and patronage to
certain men at the South.
Therefore, Mr.. Stephens says, we
must accept it. We must not investi-
gate, we must not agitate, we must
not punish the criminals, nor do any.
!hing to make fraud odious or perilous
IN the future. 1t is our duty; accord
ing to this new gospel of fraud, to put
our hands on our mouths, and our
mouths in the dust, and, placing the
ioos OF the usurper on our necks, i'm
pl0re him to keen il there until his an