Excerpt from Tennessee and Her Bondage: A Vindication and a Warning

MY countrymen - Here upon the playground of my boyhood, I greet you once more. The memories that come back to me at this moment, of the fine old time when I was a romping schoolboy here 11 on these beautiful highlands, are among the dearest and sweetest of a c equered life. This old town was then the sweet Auburn of this common wealth. But alas 1 how changed the scene. The tramp of hostile armies, and the torch of civil war have been among you. Your fertile valleys which almost laughed a harvest, when tickled with a straw, are now blighted and barren -your people impoverished - and the fine re ime of splendid old men and matrons crushed with the sorrows of t at sad time - have drop ped into the welcome grave. 1 look in vain for the school-fellows of that early day, for the old log schoolhouse, my alma mater, the last of any rade 1 ever entered, where the stern old Irish schoolmaster, with a bio ory rod in hand, stimulated the boys to study their books and behave like grown up men, in the good old fashioned way. We are told by Victor Hugo, that the two greatest functionaries in the state are the nurse and the schoolmaster, and if my poor life has been of any worth, I feel that an oblation of gratitude is due to the memory of that classic old Hibernian who now sleeps with his fathers. They say that from the force of habit he kept a hickory in his right hand to the last moment of his life - and that the very last that was seen of him, he was in the delirium of death, toebl whipping the air with his hick ory - under the sweet hallucination t at he was whipping a schoolbg. Peace to the ashes of Barnaby Hughes, late of the county Galway. E chastened us because he loved as - and we love his momor now, be cause he did chasten us. They have all passed away, and ebeld ah other generation is here, and they are in trouble, and the have sent for the schoolboy of the olden time to counsel them a out public affairs and to speak to them of the duties of the hour. He dared not disobey that summons, because it came from a people who have higher claims upon him than any other people on the habitable globe. You want to hear my views about your public debt, about the wrongs of which you are complaining, and about your rights and remedies. I shall speak plainly; and have that to say which I think will set the people of Tennessee right before the civilized world upon this question.

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