Memoir of John Howe Peyton / in sketches by his contemporaries, together with some of his public and private letters, etc., also a sketch of Ann M. Peyton

by Unknown

MR. PEYTON'S SPEECH IN CHARLOTTESVILLE.

Having much business to be settled Mr. Peyton attended the Autumn term, 1840, of the Superior court of Albemarle and was invited by the "Central Tippecanoe Club" to address the people. The "Charlottesville Advocate," edited by the talented Thomas Wood, a man who had few superiors in Virginia as a writer, thus refers to it:

"Mr. Peyton made one of the most felicitous efforts we have heard during this whole canvass. We shall not undertake to report his speech; we would do him injustice by such an effort. We will say, however, that few speakers are better qualified to entertain and instruct the public mind in reference to the great questions now agitating the country. He understands thoroughly the character of Martin Van Buren.

"He has watched him closely ever since he entered public life, in 1812, the opponent of James Madison, and drew a most faithful picture of him from that time down to this. Van himself, could he have heard Mr. P., would have been forced to admit, that a more exact likeness never was drawn. He traced him with much minuteness throughout his tortuous and slimy career, and showed to the satisfaction of every man present, that he had been alternately the lickspittle and libeller of almost every man in the country. So in reference to almost every important question which has agitated the country for the last 30 years, Martin had been found on both sides—and no man could tell what his principles were. Mr. P. ridiculed in a most inimitable manner, amid roars of laughter from his audience, the claim set up by Van's Southern friends, that he 'is a Northern man with Southern principles.' Even were it true, Mr. P. contended that it did not elevate Martin in his estimation, for that if there were any one thing he abominated more than another, it was a Northern man with Southern principles or a Southern man with Northern principles. He went for no such half-frog half-tadpole animal.

"Mr. P. laughed at the very idea of Martin Van Buren being held up to the country as a Republican. He remembered well the part he took in the memorable contest between Mr. Madison and DeWitt Clinton. He was then leagued with the blue light Federalists, and his course ever since had been in utter disregard of the good old Republican doctrines of '98 and '99."