Terrebonne County Louisiana Archives News.....Fifty Years Ago No. 13 April 4, 1891 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Savanna King savanna18king@gmail.com August 11, 2023, 12:56 am The Thibodaux Sentinel April 4, 1891 The political campaigns of 1840 and 1841, brought into prominence two of the most wonderful men and most eloquent orators that the world had ever seen. Both were young men, barely entered into manhood. One came from the bleak hills of Maine, and settled near Natchez in the state of Mississippi. He was a cripple in body, compelled to use a crutch to support himself; friendless and without money. Having obtained a situation as a teacher in the family of a wealthy planter in the vicinity of Natchez, he was refused credit for a suit of clothes by one of the prominent merchants of that town, which he promised to pay at the end of his first month’s labor. But his talents and intellectual ability were soon discovered, and an opportunity to study law being offered to him, he at once accepted the proposition. He was a Whig and when the campaign of 1840 was opened in Mississippi he took the stump, and it was but a short while before the name of Sargent S. Prentiss was known from one end of the union to the other as a brilliant, enchanting, and powerful speaker. In Mississippi no one dreamed that the Whig party had any possible show of carrying the state. But as the crowds gathered around Prentiss and listened to his speeches the tide began to turn, and although the Democrats brought all their strength into the contest, Gen. Harrison carried the electoral vote of that state. Prentiss traveled not only throughout Mississippi but made a tour through the west and north. The multitudes stood entranced at his magic eloquence that like a mountain torrent swept everything before it. He spoke in the open air as there were no halls, nor buildings large enough to contain the masses that flocked to hear him, and neither the rains nor the suns could drive one away whilst he occupied the stand. Once an old “unterrified and unwashed Democrat” went to one of the meetings where Prentiss was to speak. When the youth arose the old man pulled out his watch and said that “he had never listened to a Whig speech and did not propose to do so, but that he had heard so much about that boy that he intended to listen to him just ten minutes and no more.” Prentiss arose and at the end of a speech of two hours and a half, the old Democrat was standing with his open watch in hand, having never once looked at it. At the election in the spring of 1841 for members to the extra session of Congress Prentiss was a candidate of the Whig party, and notwithstanding all the efforts of the Democratic party he was triumphantly elected. In Congress he was as able among statesmen as he was with the masses, and at once took position as a leader of his party. In the famous contested election cases of New Jersey his power as an orator and logician was displayed to an extent that astonished friends and foes and won for him a reputation that no man of his age ever attained, and established his position as one of the leading statesmen of the country. But, unfortunately for the country his body always frail, yielded to disease, and subsequently removing to New Orleans, he died at less than 40 years of age. The other was a native of Kentucky, one of a family distinguished for talent and oratory, Thomas F. Marshal. As a stump speaker before the masses he was as near the equal of Prentiss as any one could be, but as a profound logician or debater he was not. He could draw the multitudes around him, hold them enchanted by his eloquence, and rule them at his will. He could speak upon any subject and upon all sides of any question. He was elected to the legislature of Kentucky from Louisville upon some local question, and in the legislature opposed the question by the advocacy of which he was elected. This killed him politically in that city. He removed to Lexington, the home of Henry Clay. In 1842 when the Whigs of that congressional district wished to elect young Henry Clay to Congress, Marshal, who had always professed to be a Whig and an ardent admirer of Henry Clay, told the Whig that it would not do to send young Clay to Congress, that Henry Clay was the unanimous choice of the Whig Party, and that the representative from his home district should be a man who could sustain and defend their great leader, which his son could not be expected to do. So the Whigs sent Marshal to Congress to aid their leader, and in the halls of Congress Henry Clay had no more bitter and unrelenting enemy than Thomas F. Marshal. This treachery ended his career as a political leader. In 1856 he was living in Chicago. In that campaign he made three great speeches. One in Chicago in favor of Fremont, another in Cincinnati in favor of Buchanan, and a third in Kentucky, in the advocacy of Fillmore; all within two weeks. Once he was in the rotunda of the Galt House in Louisville, in the center of which was a pool of goldfish. He began talking to them and soon the rotunda was filled with men listening to his eloquence. He made the most eloquent temperance speeches whilst intoxicated so much that he could scarcely stand erect. He signed temperance pledges and broke them, and could not be relied upon to sustain any question or principle. Giving himself up to his passion for drink, and finding himself abandoned by his friends he disappeared from life and existence leaving doubts even as to the time and place of his death. As orators Marshal and Prentiss had no peers–but there the parallel ceases. Prentiss was a man of principle, stood by his friends, betrayed no one and passed away loved, honored, leaving a grand name as a legacy to future generations. Marshal, devoid of principle, unstable, after having betrayed every friend that he had, and broken solemn promises, leaves behind him nothing to commemorate him, except his wonderful oratorical power. I was not a resident of Lafourche a half century ago, and can not say that the customs and fashions that were peculiar to that period, in the west, were in vogue here. A man with an unshaven face was rarely seen. One with side whiskers was occasionally met, but a man with a mustache would have attracted as much attention as a circus. The habit of wearing mustaches and unshaven faces was introduced a few years later by the soldiers of the Mexican war who came home, covered with glory and hair. The ladies wore dresses, with sleeves, not quite as tight as the skin, on the arm below the elbow, whilst from the elbow to the shoulders they were so large that a good sized pillow could be inserted within, which was often done, I think. I remember to have heard the ladies say that it took as much material to make the sleeves of a dress as it did to make the skirts. At all events when a lady appeared fully equipped in one of her stylish toilets, she would have been a “Daisy” but daisies had not been discovered at that date. The young men wore pantaloons made a little tighter–well they could get into them with care and attention; they were held up by by suspenders, and kept down by straps buckled under the shoes. Then the beau’s hair was cut as close as scissors could clip it, on the back part of the head, whilst the locks hanging down in front of each ear, could often be tied beneath the chin. Dressed in that style, with soap locks dangling, and head covered with a stove pipe hat, having a rim about one inch wide, the young beau went forth conquering and, to conquer, fearing neither the enticing glances from the bright eyes of his sweetheart, nor the pillow within her sleeves, having no anxiety, save the dread that his suspenders might break or his straps burst their mooring, and thereby cause a catastrophe. The young men would have been first class dudes, but dudes had not been invented, at that period. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/la/terrebonne/newspapers/fiftyyea749gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/lafiles/ File size: 8.4 Kb