The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1888-11-08
GEORGE G.. VEST.
A Fragment of Ancient History.


that Mr.. Cleveland had challenged the pro-
tected industries of the country to a fight of
determination y; that 1.-THE fight was to the
DEATH" etc. has clothed that gentleman, for
the time being, with national notoriety. Re-
hecting as it undoubtedly does, the secret pur
pose of the present Administration to strike
down the manufacturing industries of the Ma
ton, and substitute therefor the "hog-and-
hominy" policy of the cotton States of the
Union, the American people are under deep
obligations to Mr. Vest for this burst of conf
deuce.
This individual has misrepresented the State
of Missouri in the Senate of the United States
for the last 10 years. His former legislative
experience was acquired as a member of the
Confederate Congress at Richmond Va in
which capacity he served during the greater
portion OF the war as an alleged Representa-
tive from the State of Missouri. That body
existed under constitution adopted by the
Confederate States, the two main pillars of
which were human slavery aud British Free
Trade. The immaculate conception form of
Government, as advocated by Mr.. Vest and
his associates, was that based on barcfOoted
"nigger" tending cotton with devips-toe-
nail plow, drawn by a one eyed mule, accou-
tered in a cOrn-shuck collar rope-lines and
hickory bark tugs. The cOpious drafts Of
craftsmanship quaffed by Mr.. Vest in his ca
pacity as Confederate lawgiyer, still furnish
him the inspiration for his modern perform
anCes. The selection of him by Mr.. Cleveland
as a confidential mouthpiece has the merit of
fitness, in any event. 1t is, however our pres
ent purpose, as a cheerful Renaissance of Mr..
Vest, to call attention to the ability and states
manship of the Confederate Congress, as por-
trayed by the recognized historian of the South
ern Confederacy, in which Mr.. Vest served his
entered apprenticeship to qualify him as a
master workman for the American people. 1t
is undisputed that the most brilliant and we'll
informed writer of and for the South during
and since the war was the gifted Edward a.
Pollard, author of The Lost Cause" His po-
sition in Richmond as editor of the Richmond
Examiner during the entire war, gave him Pc
cullar and superior advantages for forming
correct and reliable judgments of the men OPP
Grating in the Confederate Capital and who
were charged with the destinies of the Confed-
eracy. In his Life Of Jefferson Davis with a
Secret History of the Confederacy," published
in 1869, he has summed up in burning words
the mental caliber and standing OF the men
who essayed to make laws for the illstarred
Confederacy, and who, by their utter lack of
the rudimeutal principles of craftsmanship,
fastened its downfall. On page 100 and fol-
lowing Of the above-named work, he says:
In writing of the dereliction of the Confederate
Government within the period referred to IN the
preceding chapter 1t may be thought strange that
we have not drawn into the account some notice
Of Congress. and distributed upon it some of the
responsibility for the decay of Confederate affairs
in the first year of the war. But especial ex-
PLANTATION attaches here We may at once remark
upon the utter inanity of that body which made a
pretense of performing legislative duties during
the war; and if the Confederate Congress has been
sunk nearly out of sight in all historical notices of
the contest 1t is because of the meager and uuim-
portant part it performed in it. What was known
as the Provisional Congress was really the most
inane, unimportant. incompetent and barren of
public assemblies. 1t was composed of delegates
M0ntLnmgrg aftpTWaTd q Richmond
by the different State Conventions, they respect
lively passed ordinances OF Secession. :
Yet it contained some distinguished names, and
when first organized there was considerable weight
and character i'll it. Howell Cobb of Georgia. was
its President. Among its members were naturally
those politicians who had formerly distinguished
themselves at Washington. in leading from there
the first movements of Secession, such as Toombs,
Wlgiail, Pryor and keilt But single measure
expelled from Congress nearly all il had OF worth
and talents, and in day reduced it to inane
body of mediocrties. lis most distinguished
members had also military commissions; they
were Generals, Colonels, etc, well legisla-
tors. Ii was time when the most Brilliant and
ambitious men of the South sought the field and
preferred its honors; aud when, q few weeks after
the first session of Congress in Richmond, the OBJ
lection was raised that the two careers were iu-
compatible, and that Members of Congress could
not hold military commissions the decision drove
from 1t nearly every man OF merit or note. Mill
tary men who had come down from Manassas to
take their places in Congress, and who proposed
to fill the pauses of the war with legislative duties
were excluded and compelled To rejoin their COM
mands, leaving the work Of legislation TO be done
by common, ignorant men, who were satisfied to
remain in seats which soon came to be considered
as even dishonorable III comparison with the
places of glory and danger in the field.
The decision that excluded military officers from
Congress was probably just, but in many respects
unfortunate. II accounts for that extreme intel
lectual degradation which made the Confederate
Congress peculiar stock of shame III the war
actually of the weakest and most iuane bodies
that ever met under the title of legislative assem-
bly, in historical times 1t came at last to be COM
posed chiefly of two classes-men who were never
before publicly known, or old politicians too TAR
broken down in their fortunes to attempt new
careers or to be invited by the prospect of military
honors.
II is difficult to understand how Mt one time OF
the the political concerns of the Southern Con-
federacy were almost entirely abandoned to Mr..
Davis and a Congress which was scarcely more
than fgurehead, unless we take into account a
peculiar passion in the South for military service
that marked the first years of hostilities. There
nothing like il in the North; there the Rmbi-
ton for military honors was not so absorbing and
the labors and aspirations OF public were di-
vided with singular fairness between the political
council aud the field. But to the prizes of the
latter the ambition of the South seems to have
been almost exclusively directed Scarcely any
thing was attempted in the career of statesman
ship, which in such great historical periods should
even with that of arms. The best men of the
South neglected all former fields of political amb-
ton; they were nc longer anxious TO be known as
statesmen, or Legislators, or orators, when they
might be known AS successful Generals II was
not only that the South probably from its natural
temper, placed q NlGileT value on lnartla proves
than did the North, but the former had peculiar
estimation of the war-it pro arts ct fociS and
there was public sentiment that drove men into
the army from every occupation in life and from
every seat of public office, until at last civil Office
was held in disrepute and the Government was
denuded almost to the point of stark incapacity.
This inflated desire for the military field might
have been admirable in some respects, but none,
except those who witnessed its wild and sweeping
operations in the South, can imagine how it
stripped the political arena estimate the injury
it wrought in surrendering the civil affairs OF the
| Southern Coufederacy to incompetent men, and
securing an easy and blind liberation of Mr. Davis
and the serve Congress that waited on and ex-
! ecuted his DEGREES.
1t is hardly necessary to say that the pub
lie sentiment" in the South of which Pollard
speaks, that drove men into the army from
! every occupation in life, had no effect on Mr.
| Vest. Considerations touching his personal
safety constrained him to prefer the ignobIc
! ease Of a seat in the Confederate Congress tc
rsking his life or limbs on the field Of battle
Pollard has sketched him perfectly and, let il
be remembered, he writes from the standpoint
of one who was devoted, heart and soul, to the
Southern Confederacy and to all that the
term implies.
And yet it is from such creatures as this mar
| Yest-"a laggard in council and bastard il
war"-that the fat comes that the great manu-
featuring interests of 60,000,000 of people arr
| to be torn down and destroyed in order to ruiz
the loyal North and to build up our hereditary
| enemy, Great Britain, and to crafty the MALES
of the late rebellious element of our country
| It remains to be seen whether the people art