Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-04-13

In GQlS porlOu Uu0 OcuuOCISLC pd1 " contained some of the grandest men in history. There, for instance, was Felix Grundy, whose name ought to be better known to this generation-a friend of hu- manity whose career young Democrats should study. He was born in Berkeley county, Va, Sept. ii, 1777, and died in Nashville, Dec. 19, 184O. Nearly all his active life was spent in Tennessee, and as a representative and senator from that state: and he takes high rank among those noble men who established the liberal constitutions of these western states. Any one who will compare the constitution of Indiana, for instance, with that of any of the New England or Atlantic states of the time of it's adoptio11 will be struck with the contrast-especially as to the property rights of women, the exemption of witnesses from annoyance concerning their religion and the complete separa- tion of church and state; but it is a fact not generally known that traces of the old British practice of making religious dis functions between citizens fingered in some of the Federalist states to very recent period, and that some very hot po- itical battles were waged thereon. The honor of completing the divorce of church and state and enforcing it in the constitu- tions of the states admitted before the war belongs to the Democracy.
 Another Democrat of note during the time the Democrats were rounding out the borders of the nation, was the refined and scholarly Joel R. Poinsett, of South Caro- lina He learned medicine and the natural sciences at the famed university of Edin- burgh and military engineering at Wool wich. However, his life in Great Britain only made him love his country more, and he came home to devote his life to her service. In 1909 he went to South America for President Madison to advise and assist the friends of liberty there; in 1929 he went to Mexico on a similar errand, and his able reports to Presidents Monroe and Adams give the best picture of the peculiar condition of Mexican affairs in the disturbed period following her revolution. When those reports were read and digested, all far seeing men knew that the time was near at hand when the United States must ex- tend to the Rio Grande and Pacific. He returned to South Carolina to oppose the nulli6cation movement, was secretary of war under President Van Buren, and fur nished the statesmen of that day with many of the points which finally secured us Texas and California.
 Contemporary with the foregoing, but remaining longer in active life, were the statesmen William L. Marcy and the em- inent financier, Robert J. Walker, secre- tary of war and secretary of the treasury in the stormy administration of James K. Polk. The establishment of the independ- ent treasury was the greatest achieve ment of Van Buren's administration; but the bringing of that treasury to it's high est state of efficiency and establishing the fairest system of revenue this country ever had, was the work of Robert J. Walker. The Wings indulged in some ridicule of Marcy because he did not in sist upon extending our northwestern boundary up to 50 or 40 degs.; but the solid fact remains that when he came into office we had not an undisputed title to Oregon, and when he went out we had. South of Oregon and west of Texas that administration added to the country an area twelve times the size of Ohio, a re- zion which has given to the national treasure $1, 500, 900, 900 in gold and silver.
 In conclusion, perhaps, the other side should be heard. Well, the Republicans have bought-Alaskal Once or twice a year till 1885 they issued an official docu ment to prove that the country was worth having; but the people are still skeptical. MT. Wind-galls or whatever his Kansas name isl, would probably say that the common people are s'without brains" to appreciate it. .