The age-herald., 1897-09-19

invarlable with change of opinions in the oficeholders.
 Winston was elected governor in 1853 without opposition.
 When the campaign of 1855 opened the Know Nothings" were well organized. Thsy put out Judge George D. Shortridge of Shelby county, a circuit judge, to op- pose the reelection of Winston. The two candidates canvassed in joint de- bate, driving their buggies from point to point in many counties. The canvass was extremely animated.
 Winston defeated Shortr1dge, but Shortridge could show the largest oppo- sitlon vote ever footed up in Alabama. Besides this there were high tax mem bers enough elected to the legislature to carry the internal improvement policy Shortridge had advised and Winston had opposed The planters had been making money. Slaves were getting too high for cotton production and Shortridge had taken position for state railroads, etc. So it happened that with the democratic legislature lon his hands, Governor Winston was kept busy yptoing internal improvement bills so that he had to give vent to his feelings in bitter re- sentiment.
 It was not long after the legislature of 1S55-56 met when 1t became manifest that something must be done to re-or- ganize the democratic party. There were the secession factions, the union factions, the KnowNothing sympathiz- CTS and the state rights whigs that were more democratic than otherwise. But there was no head; no bond of un- ion.
 Accordingly about the middle of De- cember oyernor Winston headed a call of columns length of names in the Advertiser, names of leading men of all factions in all parts of the state, in- vitlng the people who favored the de- mand for the rights of the south in the territories to come by their repre- sentatives to Montgomery. On the night of January 8. 1856, forty-one years after the battle of New Orleans, one of the proudest public assemblages ever convened in America packed the hall of the house of representatives. Mir Yancey spoke far the motion of the meeting. That speech alone would give rank to him among the half dozen or four or five great orators of all time and all tongues
 The democratic and antf-know noth- ing party was the name then and there given to the party that controlled for ten years and which gave the electoral vote to Buch- anan and Breckenridge in 1856; elected Andrew B. Moore governor for two terms; John Gill Shorter and Thomas H. Watts, governor.
 Yancey and Syndenham Moore and John Cochran, E. c. Bullock. William M. Brooks. E. S. Dargan, the Adverti- ser and thousands of others, members of the new democratic and anti-know nothing party were meanwhile bitterly opposed by John Forsyth and his Mo- bile Register. J. J. Seibles and his Mont gomery Confederation of the same party.
 So opened the year 1860. Correspond ing to the factional spirit of the years before, the democratic organization put two electoral tickets in the field, one for Breckenridge and Lane, the other for Douglas ard Johnson. The whigs had a Bell and Everett ticket The regular democratic and antf-know nothing par ty, for Breckenridge and Lane, carried the state.
 
 Let us go back for fifteen years to 1S45: The issue had been for several years the winding up of the state bank and it's four branches, one at Decatur, one at Huntsville, one at Montgomery and the fourth at Mobile. Every hotel keeper at Tuskaloosa, where the legis- lature met and the legislators boarded every one was director of the mother bank at the capital. The popular infer ence was the board bills of the legisla- tors were affected by the honor conferr5 on the host of bank directorship. Gov ernor Fitzpatrick had been given two terms to wind up the bank, but there stood the bank. When the demo- cratic party in the summer of 1S45 met at Tuskaloosa and nominated Nathaniel Terry for governor. presi- dent of the senate and debtor to Joshua I.anier Martin, democrat of high honors in long service, called to the people to elect him and not Terry, prom ising to wind up the bank if the people took need.
 Martin was elected.
 The bank was wound up.
 Martin was refused a second term.
 The honor of Alabama had been res- cued.
 The politicians wreaKed their ven- geance on the redeemer.
 
 One day in 1866, while United States garrisons covered Alabama, general officer of the United States army stood up before blacks and whites at Mont gornery aind told the whites to submit to the republican party with the best grace they could.
 General James H. Clanton arose and told the whites to resist the republican party. Then and there was the nuclfus laid for the democratic and conservative party.
 J. ". DUBOSE.