The Adair County news., 1906-11-21
JOHN A. HOBSON=

tongue. Like one of those gnarled and
sturdy oaks which crown with shade
his native mountain home, he stood I'M
bent before the storm, and babe def
ance to its fury, and when the storm
had passed, and the conflict was ended,
Wolford and our party were the vic
tors. He had won to the party of JEFF
ferson the Union soldiery of Kentucky,
and the flower of that party which
! held to the preservation of the Union;
he had saved US from the anarchy which
shortly after befell our sister States of
the border; he had established once for
all the supremacy of the Democratic
party in Kentucky, and given to it that
decisive majority which it holds with
iron grasp to this day.
One other bit of history, Mr.. Chair
man, and have done: 1t was in 1865,
and the war was ended. Many thous-
ands of the flower of our youth had
joined the standard of the South and
had followed it to the end with I'M
equaled valor and devotion. Bereft of
all save honor, the worn and battle
SCARED survivors had returned to
their homes. They returned to find
themselves expatriated, disfranchised
and reduced to the political level of the
negro. Deprived of their country by
solemn act of that country's Legisla-
ture, they found themselves strangers
at their own hearth-stones, aliens to
their wives, to the children of their
loins, and to the graves of their ia
theirs. The Legislature of 1865 was in
session in this city, and in that body
sat Col. Wolford as the member from
Casey and Russell. Davis, of Bour-
bon, the young son of the great Ken
lucky Senator, had brought forward a
bill to repeal these eXpatriation laws
The bill had been opposed in great
speech by the leader of the House, who
was justly regarded as one of the finest
orators of his day, and it was believed
that large majority of the Legisla-
ture was opposed to the policy of re-
storing the Confederates to their
rights. 1t was thought the bill would
be defeated, and trepidation and fear
hung like a cloud over the proudest
homes of Kentucky. But It was also
known that Wolford favored the bill,
and would make the closing speech in
its favor. 1t was known that the most
splendid soldier Kentucky had furnished
to the Union cause would speak for the
men whom he had so often faced in the
''perilous edge of battle" and at
whose hands he had received the honor
able and unhealed wounds he still bore
upon his person. The day came. 1t
was a cold day in December. The
Representative chamber was filled from
base to DOME 1t was noble audience,
the like of which has seldom been gath
cred in Kentucky. The noblest of her
matrons whose sons were outcasts I'M
der this law; the most beautiful of her
maidens, whose brothers and lovers
were under the ban of this law, were
there in the full splendor of that beau
ty which not even the terrors of that
day could dim or lesson. In that au-
dience sat the eXpatriated sons of Crit
tenden and Marshall and Breckenridge
and Clay-names that had carried the
fame of Kentucky around the world as
the home of eloquence, of courage, and
of genius. Her beauty, her genius, her
manhood, her worth were all there
anxious, silent, foreboding. In the
midst of that pageant sat the rugged
, form of Wolford. Ali eyes were GEN.
tered upon him. He arose in his place,
and supporting himself by his desk, be-
| gan the Grafton which will long be re-
) membered as the most magnificent ano
: efecting to which those walls had ever
| resounded. The Southern soldiers were