Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1860 — John Bell of Tennessee. [ARTICLE]

John Bell of Tennessee.

The Opposition members of Tennessee Legislature, on the 12th inst., nominated the Hen. John Bell for the Presidency, upon which the New York Tribune remarks as follows: “So far as we are personally concerned, we have not one word to say in opposition to Mr. Bell, and if he could be elected President in 1860, we shall be entirely content. He is a gentleman of broad and statesmanlike views, of great political sagacity, and unbending firmness. Of the whole body of Southern Whigs in the. Senate, at the time of the pessage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill,he alone had judgment, pluck, good sense, and principle enough to oppose it. If other Southern Whigs had been sufficiently enlightened and brave to have followed his example, the politics of the country would now be in a very different condition from what we behold. We should have had no Kansas broils, and we should have had no John Brown raids. Mr. Bell foretold, with unerring truth, the mischief that would flow from •the repeal of the time-honored compact, and in a statesmanlike spirit endeavored to persuade Congress to forbear. His counsels were unheeded. All that he pfophe ied oi evil, and more, has fully come to pass. He stands more than justified be ore his con stituents to-day, for the position lie took on th at memorable occ sion. He can point to his record with pride, am! dem d the approval of every friend of iiis cmiutry, of every lover f law and order, of rv- ry opponent oi useless agitation of the Slavery question. “It political hostility in any quarter withholds its praise, it is not because it is deemed to.be und.-served; it is only because it tea’s the political consequences of rendering it. History at least wiil do Mr. Bell no reluctant justice. No public iiian of our times exhibits a more unspotted political career. "There ary thousands of those who rank nominally among his political opponents who would gladly see the affairs of State committed to his prudent nnd judicious guidance. He has been the guiding star of all that is noble and manly and sagacious in Tennessee politics for a quarter of a century, and that, he should now : >e put forward by the Oppositian of that State as their choice for the Presidency, is but a just and well deserved tribute to his high character and great ability,”