The age-herald., 1899-05-14
.AM

Mr. William Garrott Brown, from the vantage ground of continued official con- neetion, has prevailed in his effort to pub fish in a neighboring northern magazine more or less fair view of the oratory Of William Lowndes Yancey, and its claims as a determining influence in the most de- cisive and tragic period of American his- tory. Had Patrick Henry failed the British colonies of North America had no lot before them inferior to Canada or Australia Had Yancey failed, amalgama- tfon of races and final extinction of the Americn system in the territory involved was the alternative.
 The paper of MT. Brown in the current number of the CBoston) Atlantic Monthly takes up one only of the three pivotal events of MT. Yaneey's career leaving the other and later two unrecognized or un- explained. The three in order of sequence were:
 L The Alabama platform of 1918, pre- pared by Yaneey alone, never reviewed or amended by any committee, but adopted without dissent by full state convention of the democratic party of Alabama at Montgomery, following a speech by Yam cey to the convention, explanatory of the paper, as he drew it from his pocket;
 2. The practical formation of a new party January. 1855, with Yaneey in the lead the result of a convention of the masses of the state assembled at Mont gomery and addressed by Yancey, which party remained Tn control ef the state and its government thereafter as long Yam cey lived-seyen years;
 8 The activity of Yancey and the eharac- ter of his public labors during the existence of the confederaey.
 Mfr. Brown is lucid and accurate in stat ing the position of Yancey on the question set forth by the Alabama platform. The question was, the preservation of the equality of the states in the practical gov ernment of the union, the alternatives be- ing sectional rule and ultimate eensolida- tiea and military empire over the whole. The failure of the desperate effort of the reconstruction period to extnguish the states and establish military rule is to be credited to the vigor and valor of the "Ku Klux," the Red Shirts," the Mississippi pIan," supported by the followers of Yan- cey in all the energy left by him as le- gacy to his countrymen-
 Touching upon this division of Yancey' s political life, MT. Brown aptly reminds us that while Wendell Philips. Beecher, Gar rison, Mrs. Stowe failed to effect the di- vision they demanded. failed to accomplish the wholesale massacre of the whites by the blacks, which they had sent John Brown to Inspire and lead. Yancey suc- eeeded in erecting a powerful southern confederacy, living under the fastest re- fnement of constitutional government and supporting an army on land and ships of war on the high seas, whose prowess and glory remain without a parallel in the am nats of national self-defense. The ethical status of Wendell Philips was license, massacre, infideIfty, chaos. The ethical status of Yancey was the written law, it's security and it's reform but always the written law. Ir. Brown is a. schoolman of industry End not statesman -ef imagination and constructive power. His environment con trols his view. Hence he dfsmisses Yam ceys oratorieal labors in the free states, in the midst of the campaign of 1860. with this comment "A tour de force that smacks of overfed ambition. or else of, a real hope" that the union under the con stitutfou might yet be preserved The un- acknowledged authority from which MT. Brown draws every line of his facts would have taught him that MT. Yancey, quietly pursuing his profession at home was inn portuned to the national committee to