Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1860 — SPEECH OF HON. MR. WIGFALL. [ARTICLE]

SPEECH OF HON. M R. WIGFALL.

It is certainly very refreshing, after having become accustomed to the stately dignity usually observable in speeches delivered in the.rSenate of the United States, and which lenders that body second only to the House of Lords, to get hold of such an effusion as that of the Hon. Mr. YVigfall,Democratic Senatior from Texas, in opposition to the Homestead Bill, delivered in the Senate on the 22d ult.

We were taught in our school-boy days that the best speakers and writers of the age were the standard of the English language. If the Senator from Texas classes himself among the “best” speakers, it will be necessary to interpolate a few phrases that Webster never heard of; for instance, “Wouldn’t touch it with a forty foot pole,” is a very classic expression that the gentleman must have learned some place “out West,” where we have heard it used in connection with skunks, or something that but never heard it applied to anything so beneficent as the Homestead Bill. “Blatherskiting Americanism,” is the euphonious expression that Mr. Wigfall has invented to express his idea of that feature of American progressiveness—“manifest destiny.” We congratulate the gentleman on having thus enriched the language. But it is only speaking of the effects of the election of a Republican President, that the Senator rises to the highest flight of eloquence, of which he is capable. After premising that such a President could never be inaugurated, he says: “Now cut your leashes, turn loose your terriers and take in your rat-killers, and if we do not go into winter-quarters in Boston, before you do in Texas, you may shoot me.” Oh, ye gods! preserve us from the ire of the Senator, who says he has on his side, “Hemphill, of Texas, who ate salt pork witli him in Florida,” while on the Northern side of the Senate he “can see no soldier but Pugh.” After this he gets up into the “poetics” and in view of his perilous situation, in case the aforesaid plan should be brought about, and in view , also, of his own insignificance when compared with his “better half,”“lf I was to die, or she, it is a mere question whether I cry for my wife, or she cries for me;” and we presume it makes very little difference which way the question is solved.

Hear him explain Democratic liberality. He says he is opposed to the Homestead Bill, but if it does pass, he will propose an amendment, that Congress “shall furnish those who will work the land—and I think about three negroes would be enough—one woman, with a child, and her husband, with a prospect of n largo increase. Then we we should be doing the clean thing.” That is the clean Democratic thing. This, we presume is more important from a Democratic point of view than is the land. The Senator expresses his opinion of it, and wc presume he echoes the sontimentsof agreat many Democrats, in the following words: “Here is a bill providing lands for the landless, homes for the homeless, and leaving out Uif? important matter, in my opinion, of

niggers for the niggerless.” But we cannot follow him farther. The speech is well worthy a perusal. Verily, Texas may be proud of her Senator, and Democracy of its champion. 3