Record Data
Transcription
A. H. STEPHENS.
From the telegraphic report of the late speech of A. H. Stephens, at Montgomery, we assume that there is no doubt of his ready acceptance of the Vice-President’s place which has been tendered him by the Conspirators Convention. The alacrity with which he falls into the secession movement – he, as late as December, an avowed Union man – more clearly than any other incident of the day, marks the tendency of the popular mind in the South. Mr. Stephens is a grave, thoughtful and earnest man. He was firmly committed to the maintenance of the Union; and his lapse into the treason by which he is surrounded, is indicative not so much of his own weakness as of that general disregard of loyalty and liberty which marks the political thought of his section. He has been swept away by the current; and if he does not live to realize the force of the truth which he lately announced – “those who commence revolutions rarely complete them” – he will die early in his bed. The tone of his speech leaves little room to doubt that he is by no means certain of the result of that in which he has engaged. But he has made his bed and chosen his companions; and his are the consequences.
