The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1908-05-27
rou can pardon the acceptor Of a chal.

| yOu can pardon the acceptOr OF cnai
lenge and condemn the sender By
| that barbarous code he who was charg
with an infamous offense could not
clear his skirts by proving its falsity
| To prove the charge false and to fail
to resent it was to aggravate the i'm
putation of cowardice, in that day
more odious than vice or crime. The
same perverted public opinion which
necessitated the acceptance forced the
sending of q challenge"
| Could a retort be more conclusive?
II Hamilton was martyr OF the bar
| barous code when he accepted, II nee
essarily follows that Burr was also a
martyr when It required him to send
I the challenge.
Those fond Of the brilliant, the or
nate, the exuberant. the splendid, can
| find il In these passages with which
I Stanley closed his speech:
For centuries neither the telescope
OF the astronomer nor the researches
of science could solve the mystery of
/ that misty light, that glimmering Cos.
samer encircling the brow of night:
at last the spectrum revealed in this
nebula unborn worlds held in a SHIN
mering gauze; revolving masses of in
candescent gas, cooling through the
passing cycles of time, growing denser
without, shrinking within, forming
smoky concentric circles. whirling
luminous fog, congealing into molten
rings drawn by their own gravity into
rude globes, and these spinning
spheres shaped by the plastic hand of
. Divinity like clay upon a potter
wheel. into planets and their satel-
lites. new solar systems, swinging for
the first time into their orbits in the
trackless, fathomless depths above.
Thus God peoples the heavens with
radiant worlds.
Il have fancied that those daring
bands of exiles, forgotten by one world
and lost in the dark wilds Of another,
living and dying in ignorance of the
mighty destiny of their children's chill
dren, conscious only that they were
free-I have fancied that He, with
whom thousand years are as a day
or a watch in the night when 1t is
passed. saw an unborn and puissant
nation through all the mists of mis-
cry, persecution and death, through
which succeeding generations passed,
first to independence, then to the mas
terry of the land and sea.
'In the vast womb of the wilderness
the colonies took form, though vary
ing in their orbits and splendor, but
they differed only as one star differs
from another star in glory In the
hour of destiny each found it's own
place about the great central power,
TO which, like the planets, they were
eternally bound. yet forever separate.
The fathers, l declare to you, heard
the voice of God when they covered
this continent with states, even as the
heavens are bespangled with stars.
''The same peril awaits the star and
the state. The state discovered from
her sisters is lost, even as a planet
wrenched from its moorings, comet
like, becomes the wandering vagrant
of the skies.
Either, drawn by the compelling
gravity of a central force into its
mighty vortex, is annihilated by the
power which should have been the
source of light and life.
From the chaos of disuDion and the
wreck of Capitalization may he who
ordained long preserve this constella-
ton of states.
Let no new Hamilton arise to dis
turb or destroy their exquisite bal.
ance-harmonious, distinct, indssolu-
BILE, they shall remain eternal as the
revolving stars"
For years and years the dogmatism
Of Hamiltons eulogists has dominated
American public thought. | only wish
that Owsley Stanley would take time
to elaborate this splendid speech of
his and offer it to some leading maya.
zine. 1t would carry confusion into
every Hamilton camp, and shake the
walls of Harvard College themselves.