National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1879-08-05
A CONGRESSIONAL "REMINISCENCES.

In the month of January, 1872, Mr.. BECK,
of Kentucky, was in the House of Rcprcsen-
tatives, and took occasion to violate the par
liamentnry rule which protects the men,
bers of each House from criticism and
abuse on the part of members of the other
branch, by making an assault upon Senator
BRowNLow, of Tennessee. In this he out
ragged not only parliamentary law and
usage, but the propreties of chivalric
nature, If he possessed it, by striking where
no personal danger lurlled in the physical
man nssailed. But BECK did not escape
the intellectual man, though he was safe
from physical punishment. He had de-
nounced BRowNLow, while in Tennessee,
rs making Pandemonium Of that State"
and referred to him rs among those who are
loathed and execrated by the people whose
rights. liberty and honor it was their duty
to protect. He said that "retributive JUS
" tice was on their track Some had been
" "overtaben, the others would be. Hated
" and dcspised, their only refuge, if they
&c can escape the penitentiary, seems to be in
" the Senate of the United States"
A few days after this TRADE Senator
BRowNLow asked and obtained unanimous
consent of the Senate to make reply to it,
and consent being given, he did so by re-
marking:
There was a time In the history of my life
when Mr.. BECK would not have dared to put
this or any other insult upon me, for fear that
/ would have taken from his hand the slave-
whip, with which, rs overseer on Kentucky
plantation, he wns accustomed to whip negroes
for pay, and laid il across his back. The code
by which the gentleman of Kentucky were
governed in those days, having in it certain
principles of honor, would not have reached
low enough down in the social scale to find his
level for when he abandoned the honorable
pursuit ofhostler in a livery stable to become a
slave driver he betrayed the possession of
qualities which the gentlemen of old Kentucky
never ceased to despise If the overseers Of
Kentucky whipped tho negroes under
their slave system of labor, the gentle
men of Kentucky, be it said to their
credit, sometimes whipped the overseersi
they did not fight with them. Their code of
honor forbade it, But both of these methods
have gone out of date, and in the upheavals Of
the civil war we tiud men who were once over
seers aspiring to seats formerly filled by CLAY
and CRITTENDEN, denouncing the Senate as a
refuge for thieves and yet canvassing to BE-.
cure seat in it, If it is a mere refuge from
the penitentiary, why, / would ask, is Mr..
BECK so anxious to come to the Senator Is he
affrighted by the rapidly closing career of his
Democratic compatriots, Boss TWEED, PETER
B. SWEENEY, CONNOLLY and HALL2 Does
the shadow of Sing Sing reach all the way to
Kentucky? Does it forewarn him of his i'm
pending doom, that he should strive to find a
refuge like the guilty King Of England, who
exclaimed:
"By the apostle Paul, shadows tonight
| Have struck more terror TO the soul of Richard
Than had the substance of ten thousand soldiers
| am a refugee, and while the short limit OF
my life endures cannot recover from Its out
ward signs. These feeble limbs, that need as
sstance to bring me to this Chamber; these
palsied hands, that ask for help to write; my
whispering voice, that cannot speak my
| thoughts, all bear testimony TO the fact am
a refugee. 1t is a towards part to call me one,
but yet hold the title as an honor
After pressing Mr.. BECK in this vein fol
some time-insertng his knife of bitter sar'
casm occasionally, and giving it an extra
twist-and lashing him numerically with
whip more dreadful than that of the
slave driver, he remarked: "The asperities
"of the war are not yet over, and l doubt
Rebels still manifest toward Union men
but am sustained by good conscience
sand unfaltering trust in divine goodness
and can stand that. My public acts arr
already part of the history of my State
"and country, and 1 submit them to thu
honest judgment of posterity. AS DANIEI
"WEBsTER once said Of contemptibl,
foe: 4 leave him; l leave him in th'
"worst possible company; leave him will
"himself."