The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-07-07
ny sAyoYARD.

And the King said unto his servants Know we not that there is a prince ana < great man fallen this day in Israel?
 The centuries that separated the lives Of the Brutus who banished Tarquin and the Brutus who slew Caesar dio not witness more changes In Rome than John T. Morgan saw in America pe- tween his first day at the bar, In ls4o' and his last day in the Senate in lsof' He was of the old South that is his- forv and romance. honor and glory, There Is all the difference between the old South and the new that there IS between fame and notriety, between John T. Morgan and John T. Graves Not d great while before his death John c. Calhoun. the profoundest think er the most eminent statesman, ana the greaAest man the cotton Soutn nas produced. went on a tour of the then Southwest. His journey extended 10 the Mississippi River and he was at Memphis and New Orleans. He tarried some days in Alabama. where Dixon H. Lewis had long contended for. ana William R. King had just as long akriven against, the doctrines of the H. lustrous South Carolinian, and in Ala hama he found William L Yancey. who had opposed nullification in South Carolina in 1880 and John T. Morgan. then an his youth. the flower of wnicn gave promise of the rich and golden fruit of his mature manhood. It was the period of the wilmot proviso that sspecifically asserted that the South had not equal rights with the North in the protection of the Constitution ! or the United States and the laws made fn pursuance thereof. Calhoun confer red with both Yancey and Morgan and they fell in with his views touching the position the South should occupy in the then political crisis. Secession would have come then but for the compromise Henry Clay patched up in 1850.
 When secession did come Yancey and Morgan both loyalty and grimly sup ported 1t. Morgan. though a public man, had never held public office oth- er than Presidential elector. He was leader Of the bar of his State and his section. He was that happy composite "a learned lawyer and an honest man. He never sought office. His gran deur of character commanded 1t. He would as soon have begged his bread aa to solicit vote He went before the people and discussed public ques- tfons; but he spoke for Alabama, not for Morgan Ofice. perpetual and the hiRhest, would have been valueless to him and thing to be scorned if be- slowed on condition that he surrender tho least conviction he had on the least political issue imaginable.
 That was the old South. and John T. Morgan was an old Southerner. It and ha had but one creed-loyalty to obli- Eation-which is nothing but fidelity to conviction and constancy to plighted faith. He held that the Federal gov ernment has no title to rule except what is nominated in its deed, made by the States and called the Constitution 0g the United States. It is an instru- nent as binding on the grantee as 1t fs on the grantor. The design was this ---stmply this--to restrain majorities. we hear a heap of slush about gov ernment by the people" and all that rot, as though the people are infallible and can do no wrong, when one who has Axhe merest smattering of history ought to know that the only use in the world of free government, and the only thing for which 1t was ever instituted. is to keep the people from doing wrong. If the people could do no wrong there would be no use for any government whatever This government of ours was made for no other purpose than to keep me people from doing wrong. We spend a billion a year in that behalf, and then dnn't get what we contract for. Whenever you see a man going up and down the earth bowling gov ernment by the people" spot him: watch him He's got a cloven foot somewhere about his person. and give him time and he will show it.
 Morgan understood the thing. Yor never heard him bowling about "gov' eminent by the people" He was toe afithful to the Constitution, which il government by the representatives oi the people. That is the stuff. Oul ancestors in England invented 1t; oul fathers in America improved on 1t. l xs in all the State constitutions tha are over thirty years old. It is the EouI of that system of government w na1l a republic. It is the only fret Government in the world. The ont naeaner government than the Persian despotism of Darius and Xerxes wat the pure democracy of Athens. Mid way between the two is representative government.
 And where is the candid man to say fnat we have not been reasonably sue eessful under representative govern msnt? Why not bear the blessings VI have a little longer rather than fly to fads we know not of? It is a very good Constitution and very good gov. 8EAtNE1G- WO AhAShI 6O Ao1 NAASA eAAAN fare worse. Indeed we might.
 John T. Morgan came to the bar 1T 1S4S, when twenty-one years of age Tt was a powerful intellect with whtci he was endowed and 1t was a granc character that he made. Like al Southern gentlemen of that age, Nor gan devoted much study to govern ment He was deeply read in history and he was a laborious and profound thinker He was on the stump II every campaign and a leader of tha people, as splendid a citizenship as thu world ever saw. When the inevitable struggIe came he went with his State entered the army a private, and by hi valor earned the rank of general o hrfeade. When defeat overwhelmet the South 1t left him bankrupt il everything but manhood and charac ter.
 He returned to his profession an' again took his place as leader o his people. The fatuous fanatics O the North thought they had mad John T. Morgan, the highest type 0 saxon, the subject of Jerry Haralson < 4 cotton field negro. The Saxon wa disfranchised: the negro was sent t csongress The Revocation of the Edtc of Nantes was the sagest statemanshi Ana holiest piety in comparison Tn hurninR of witches, the hanging O ouakers and the banishment of Bap fists was profounder virtuous policy Tf would be as easy to subject tn ,.1fvsda to mans will, as to bend tn