Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-07-19
DEATH OF WILLIAM ALLEN.

WnGle community ID hO OANAheAS
man. whether those ideas are right
or wrong. This will be readily adj
mitted. but we are disposed to go
further and TO affirm that opinions
which are so universally received
as those of William Allen, were
among his own people so enthusl-
astically contended for and so ten
aciously adhered to, must have in
them some solid basis of truth to
sustain them, and that the ideas OF
William Allen could never have /
gained currency as the Ohio idea if
there had not been something in /
the ideas themselves which met the |
substantial needs and offered rem
edy for the substantial evils which |
were affecting the people of that |
and many other States. That there
were errors mixed up with them,
and that these errors have been ex-
aggerated by his followers till they
have become miscellaneous heresies,
we do not doubt; but all original
men who have effected radical
changes in opinion and practice
have fallen into error; that very
vehemence of character which car
ries men through such changes
against stubborn opposition is itself
a source of intemperance in their
assertion which almost necessarily
hurries such men into eXtremities.
Luther taught things which most
men look upon as errors in the pres
ent day, and Wesley regretted some
positions he had taken to the day of
his death; Luther and Wesley are
nevertheless revered as great relig-
ious reformers, and deservedly, and
the Ohio idea, whatever eXtrava-
gances have been associated with it,
was one which needed to be asserted,
and William Allen will long be
looked upon as a public benefactor
for having asserted it.
William Allen, born at Edenton,
n. c., in 1907 is almost unknown
until sixteen years later. He acted
as Greeley afterwards advised young
friends-"Go West, young man." In
1923 he started on foot for Chilli
cothe, Ohio, then considered the far
west, where a half-sister of his lived,
who was the wife of Pleasant Thur
man and mother of \. G. Thurman,
now Senator from Ohio and acting
President of the Senate. Mrs.
Thurman seems to have been lady
of great mental powers and to have
done much towards developing the
talents and directing the studies
both of her son and her nephew.
Here he supplemented the common
school education he had received in
North Carolina by two years train
ing in the ChillicOthe Academy,
and then commenced the study OF
law. An amusing story is told on
the authority of Allen himself of
his having passed his examination
before the Judges of the Supreme
Court of the State by the aid of a
portentious draught of apple brand
dy-a means of fertilization, how
ever, which he does not recommend
to young lawyers of the present day.
He had not been long in practice
before he turned his attention to
politics.
In those days the old Federal
party was just laying aside its old
and generally secuted title and
adopting the title of Wing. In do
ing so it relaxed some of its more
obnoxious tenets and thereby re-
ceived a considerable accession of
adnerents from it's old antagonist,
the Republican party, gaining much
strength thereby and apparently
becoming the predominant power
in the nation. a large portion,
however, of the old Republican
party did not come into this coali-
ton, and in turn changed its name
and went into opposition as the
Democratic party. This organiza-
ton soon attracted to itself the
rising talent, the young and active
blood of the nation. Among these
recruits one of the most ardent was
William Allen, who more than
forty years ago declared war against
the Wing party, and all the here
sizes which grew out of it, subverted
its original character, and finally
destroyed it, and with the I'M
varying title of Democrat he con-
tinued to strike heavy blows
at it for more than forty years.
Chillicothe was a stronghold
of Whiggery in those days, and it
took some courage for a young man
twenty-five years old to beard the
lion in his den, but the Democrats
of his district put him up as a can
didate for Congress against an eX-
perieneed Wing politician and cele-
brated speaker named Murphy,
whom he met on the stump through
out his district, and finally, after a
red-hOt canvass, beat him by a
majority of one in a vote of over
10000. An attempt to displace him
by an investigation in Congress
failed through his great address in
meeting it and his skill and judg-
ment in doing SO at once gave him
great prominence and influence
among the Democrats of that day.
lie was twice elected to Congress
in the interval between 1882 and
1897, and in the latter year was
elected to the United States Senate
just at the termination of Gen. Jack
sons second term, which position
he occupied through the Presiden-
cies of Van Buren,, Harrison, Tyler
and Polk. During this latter term,
as Chairman of the Committee on
Foreign Relations, he took an active
part in the heated debates of those