NEWS OF 150 YEARS AGO
March/April 1860
From The Missouri Democrat, Friday, March 9, 1860.
POLITICAL ITEMS.
A Douglas paper tells us that the Little Giant is a “fixed fact.” Well, so are jackasses, on the score that “facts are stubborn things.”—Louisville Journal.
The Christian Banner, a Hard Shell Baptist oracle, published at Fredericksburg, Va., thus comments on the vote of Henry Winter Davis to make Mr. Pennington Speaker:
There is no peaceful locality for a traitor. Execrated by heaven, scorned by earth, hissed by hell’s deepest damned, with legions of loathing vipers forever gnawing at the fountain of vitality, he is sent adrift through immeasurable space, continually lashed with a thousand scorpion thongs, while his awful wailings rend the air, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.”:
Thereupon the Tribune remarks:
If the gentlemen who manage the religious press should at any time be promoted for good conduct to the control of the political journals, we apprehend that there would speedily accrue an enormous increase in the number of libel suits, and a serious advance in the price of rawhides.
They celebrated the 22d in Lexington, Va., with addresses and a debate by a literary society. The question debated was:
“Ought the South adhere to the Union in the event of the election of Wm. H. Seward to the Presidency?”
That’s Southern patriotism—to debate upon the anniversary of the birth of the Father of his Country, the question whether the South ought to commit treason or not.
A WASHINGTON letter-writer gives the following incident of the long Speaker contest:
As Barksdale was urging all the opposition elements to unite on McClernand, a lady in one of the front seats of the gallery was observed to become very much excited. She coughed, made signs, and by other means attempted to attract the attention of a member below. Not succeeding, she leaned far over the balcony, and in an audible whisper exclaimed, “David! David! change your vote, you booby!” The honorable member looked up, recognized his better half, colored, hesitated, stammered, and then instantly changed his—seat. A small delicate fist was shaken at him from the gallery, amid the suppressed mirth of the spectators.
