Yancey on the spot, there was no alternative left to Hilliard except to meet him face to face. He agreed, therefore, that a committee of his friends should arrange with a Yancey committee the details of debate. It was decided that Yancey should open and Hilliard close, with an allotment of one and a half hour to each. This was not altogether satisfactory to Yancey. At first he insisted that the order should be reversed, on the ground that it was Hilliard's work to build up and his to tear down. Inasmuch as it was Hilliard's plan of campaign that he was breaking his way into forcibly, he yielded the point after some stickling, and launching out poured forth his destructive broadsides against his opponent upon a sea of eager, up-turned faces. He charged Hilliard with inconsistency on the slavery question and pressed the point that a man holding such views could not be entrusted with the interest of the South. He denounced Fillmore and Webster as opposed to the extension of slavery, and Hale and Giddings as unqualified, uncompromising abolitionists. He scored the compromise measures unmercifully. They brought no relief to the South, and were discountenanced by the leading statesmen of the North. Eloquent tribute was paid to the chivalry of the South and to the valor of Southern soldiery in the Mexican war. The Southerner having fought and won the battles of that war, two-thirds of the acquired territory should be at his disposition. He favored immediate secession, but would abide by his party's action. After speaking somewhat over an hour, he asked how much time remained to him. The answer came twenty-five minutes. Then his partisans shouted "Go on! Go on!" He replied that he wanted only five minutes more. Amid shouts to "go on,' he soon desisted with the remark: for Hilliard to chew on for ten hours, and I'll quit." In his book, "Politics and Pen Pictures," Hilliard says of him: "He spoke for more than an hour with animation, but not with the vigor I had expected from him.” "Well, I have said enough Enthusiastically received by his friends, Hilliard began his reply with an expression of regret that his original plan had been thwarted, and that a joint discussion had been forced upon him against his judgment. He discussed the ordinance of 1787 forbididing slavery in the northwest territory, thus showing the institution from the government's beginnings had been under congressional control, though he believed in its extension as in any other property right. In an aggravated form the question did not rise until the Oregon territorial government was in process of formation. To the bill organizing the territory the Wilmot proviso, forbidding slavery, was attached, and Mr. Yancey, while a member of Congress, voted for the bill with this prohibitory clause. He discussed the compromise measures, and attempted to show by the provisions that the South stood then in advance of any position it had held on slavery for the ten years preceding. He did not question the sincerity of Yancey in advocating secession, but declared it unwise and unstatesmanlike. He maintained his loyalty to the South, while professing friendship for the Union. After hearing the debate, a Chuneynuggee farmer declared that Yancey had been completely "over-crapped." The exposure of Yancey's vote on the Oregon bill disconcerted and irritated him greatly. It forced him to an explanation. On the floor of Congress he had opposed vigorously the clause prohibiting slavery; but defeated, he voted for the territorial organization on the ground that some form of government was imperatively needed in that far off region. On the third day a serious breach came about, and for a time the debate was interrupted. The occasion of the rupture shows how an insignificant matter the thoughtless use of a word-may produce unfortunate misunderstandings. At the same time it shows the eagerness and readiness of an opponent to catch any slender thread whereon to hang a point and clinch an argument. Hilliard was not wholly blameless in the affair. Yancey, explaining how he voted for the Oregon bill with the Wilmot proviso, said that the vote was cast upon a bill to admit Oregon. In his reply Hilliard alluded to the fact with emphasis that Yancey had said that it was a vote to admit Oregon. The word admit was used inadvertently instead of organize, one having reference to statehood, the other to territorial entity. Doubtless forgetting that he had used the word admit, Yancey rose promptly and pronounced Hilliard's statement false and said that Hilliard knew it was so when he made it. His manner was very offensive and highly insulting. A Hilliard organ, the Eufaula Southern Shield, edited by Benjamin Gardner, describes Yancey, on the occasion, as using "rough and uncouth language," "anything but courteous," "out of temper," when Hilliard "handled him without gloves," "and exposed his unfairness and disingenuousness, holding up his vote on the Oregon bill, with the Wilmot proviso in it." With the close of debate Hilliard decided to break off all future discussion with Yancey without some explanations, and assurances that such an occurrence would not be repeated. The next day's speaking had been announced to take place at Eufaula, next to Montgomery the most important town in the district. Great crowds had gathered in eager anticipation of a great battle of giants, inasmuch as the canvass was already farfamed and widely advertised. The respective retinues of noted politicians and enthusiastic adherents from adjoining counties, who were taking in every appointment to speed on the good work as each interpreted it, were on hand. The excitement was intense. There was dismay created by the threatened interruption. Notes passed between the representatives of each gentleman in a vain effort to bring the speakers together on the same platform; but Hilliard was inflexible in his purpose to permit no joint discussion without an apology. With a correspondence ending to no purpose, Yancey's partisans claimed vociferously that Hilliard had backed out, while Hilliard's friends maintained that Yancey had shown the white feather. For several days each gentleman spoke separately, while filling their appointments. This was entirely too tame an affair after so much fun and such displays of fireworks. Eventually the two orators were brought together, differences were satisfactorily adjusted, and the joint discussion continued to the end. Hilliard in his book, "Politics and Pen Pictures," after speaking of the renewal of cordial relations says: "Before the debate opened Mr. Yancey and I were seated in pleasant conversation, when he said to me: 'Mr. Hilliard, shall we have a friendly debate to-day?' I replied: 'Mr. Yancey, I must mention your vote on the Oregon question; I cannot overlook it to-day.'' Infinite satisfaction was expressed by the adherents of each over the results at each appointment, and the honors of victory were adjudged and proclaimed according to party bias. I should be disposed to question the accuracy of the judgment of the Alabama Journal editor touching the effect of the canvass upon each of the distinguished combatants, were it not for the overwhelming victory achieved by the Whigs, or Union men, over the Democrats, or Southern Rights, men at the polls. Abercrombie won by twelve hundred majority, a majority far exceeding any given Hilliard in any of his contests. The canvass closed at Montgomery with a barbecue and a five hour's debate between Hilliard and Yancey. Speaking of Yancey the Journal said: "No one could have defended a bad cause better than did Mr. Yancey. Every point of supposed advantage, of which the subject was susceptible, was ably made by him. He seemed hampered, however - the banner of secession was not over him his heart did not seem in it and he found himself in a position which he recently deprecated that of tolerating expediency and milder remedies. His tone is changed from that ultraism which he so boldly urged before the commencement of the canvass, and as Mr. Hilliard said, he has made him a very fair Union man as times go. In that respect Mr. Hilliard claims him as the captive of his bow and spear. "Mr. Hilliard was in fine spirits, evidently feeling like Rob Roy, that 'his foot was his native heath, and that his name was McGregor.' He returns exulting, triumphant, and full of confidence from the combat. Not a feather has been struck from his lofty crest, and without mark of stroke of lance upon helm or shield. The banner which was entrusted to his hands he brings back, as ever before, brilliant with the lustre of victory. His inspiriting eloquence awoke the confidence and enthusiasm of his friends and the friends of the cause, who responded to it with rapturous cheers." Judge William R. Smith, in his "Reminiscences of a Long Life," has a very readable sketch of Hilliard. Therein at some length in a brilliant vein he describes an incident of the debate. This was Yancey's effective use of the phrase, 'god of battles,' and Hilliard's equally effective demolishment of it. I am in clined to think this a myth, the product of a fervid imagination, for in reading repeatedly the narrative of the debate in successive issues of Hilliard's mouthpiece, the Journal, I find no such incident mentioned. The nearest approach to anything of the kind is Hilliard's playful allusion, at one appointment, to the act of Yancey's friends in carrying from place to place a cannon, which was fired to disturb Hilliard. He said at Midway: "Mr. Yancey and the gun are alike. The gun is a big gun, and so is Mr. Yancey; but I am not afraid of either, as they both fire blank cartridges." I regret my disillusionment, or rather that I must question the authenticity of the Judge's story, for it is a passage which I have read and re-read with an ever-increasing zest. As a curious relic of political doggerel and buncombe, I resurrect a campaign song sung at one of the barbecues of the canvass to the tune, "The Old Granite State," and composed by J. S. Vann: We have come from hill and valley, we have come from hill and valley, We are all for our country, and we'll show it at the polls. We are all true-hearted Union men, we are all true-hearted men, You may tell us of disunion and your Southern Rights communion By a false pretension to a Southern Rights convention, We are all Washingtonians, we are all Madisonians, But we hope to see this Union, North and South, in such communion, Our country's now in motion, as a ship upon the ocean, Though the wind and tide are swelling, our speakers they are telling Us wi h trust on our side we can stand a mighty host. |