Public Ledger

WADE AND THE FEAST

Old Ben Wade talked right out at the banquet yesterday, and very much in the style of a master speaking to dependants. He evidently had got an idea into his head that the rebels wanted to buy him off with soft speeches and elaborate bills of fare. Whether or not he smelt a substantial purpose of that sort, he took care to announce that he would take no step backwards. Very well, Mr. Rebel, says blunt Mr. Wade, make your demonstrations, ride me on your rails, feast me at your hotels and compliment me with sentiments to be washed down with wine-do what you like-anything-I understand you. I tell you that I will not move an inch from the rock of my ultimatum; and neither will Congress. Our people have indorsed us, and we mean to carry out their will at all hazards. I come into your country to take a look at you. I want to see what you are doing. I want to see for myself whether or not you are loyal. Your fine speeches will not do the least good. I don't believe you are honest in tendering me an ovation, and while I will eat and drink with you, I do not believe that you are honest. You have a purpose, and, by the light of the freedmen's eyes, you shall not accomplish it.

"The Congress of the United States," was proposed and "swallowed in champagne. Of course nobody meant an indorsement of the policy of Congress: of course not. But it looks on paper very much that way. If there is anything we of the South have reason to fear, that thing is Congress. If there is anything that hates the people of this section, that thing is Congress. We owe all the calamities that pursue us to Congress. If we turn to the past, we see the ruin it has wrought. If we look to the future, we discover its gigantic shadow lying along the way we are to go. It is all around us as thick and thundering as the clouds that hurl themselves against the Alps. It is eminently tyrannical. If it could be moved to pity, the sorrows, the destitution of our section would long since have brought tears to its eyes and warmth to its heart. It was moved by no tale of suffering. It only listened to stories that told of outrages-stories born in malice, and perverted in the fires of hell. It made them the basis of the action of the Reconstruction Committee, and it acted upon none other. The Southern States are to lose their State governments. That is what Congress means. It is what Ben. Wade meant yesterday when speaking in the midst of the feast.