This put a different face upon the matter, and simple justice seemed to require that the actual incumbent should remain unmolested in the enjoyment of the honors and emoluments of his office.
But there came another statement from a fourth party, containing grave and serious charges not only against Barnaby and Clark, but also against Upton, and recommending the removal of the latter, and the appointment of a new candidate. Mr. Ezekiel Sloman, to the vacancy. It was made to appear that Mr. Sloman was the man, of all others, to please the community at large; and for a time his prospects were very good; but some of Upton's friends getting wind of the matter, it was satisfactorily represented to the Department, that although an honest, well-meaning man, the said Sloman was entirely destitute of energy and business tact; that, indeed, he had so little worldly capacity that he was literally supported by the charity of friends; and that in order to relieve themselves of the encumbrance, these friends had united to have him appointed post master.
Thus Sloman was cast overboard. The Upton party exulted. Their opponents were exasperated, and a coalition was formed between the Barnaby and Clark factions.
Aminadab Fogle and John Harmon put their heads together. Both Clark and Barnaby were dropped, and all hands agreed to support a new man named Wheeler. But the main thing was to remove Upton. The following strong point was accordingly made against that individual, in addition to the previous charges.
"Although entirely disinterested in the matter, except so far as the common rights of humanity are concerned, the undersigned consider it their conscientious duty to inform your Honor that the said Upton is decidedly opposed to the present national administration. He has long been at heart an abolitionist of the deepest dye, and of late his fanaticism has shown itself in public. During the recent Presidential campaign, the post-office was made the head-quarters of the Free Soilers, and was, during a large portion of the time, converted into a regular caucus room by the leaders of that party. That your Honor may judge for yourself what this man's political conduct has been, the undersigned take the liberty of calling your attention to the enclosed editorial notice of a Free Soil meeting in which Deacon Upton took an active part. It is clipped from the columns of the "Temperance Goblet," a paper neutral in politics and religion, and entirely independent and impartial on the post-office question.
The following is the newspaper paragraph referred to:
"Next, we were a little surprised to see our respected friend post master Upton take the floor, and treat the audience to a harangue, which as a specimen of eloquence will, we venture to assert, find nothing to compare with it in the orations of Cicero. But it was the matter, more than the manner of the speech, which excited our astonishment. We had always given our friend credit for being a law and order man, notwithstanding his well known abolition prejudices," (words in italics underscored with ink by the petitioners,) until the occasion of this public demonstration of the most ultra Garrisonianism. How a man, uniformly discreet, should have suffered his feelings to run away with his judgment in a public discourse, we cannot conceive, unless it be that in the whirlwind of eloquence that bore him away, all consideration of law, patriotism, and duty, were lost sight of. After all, it is not Upton who is to blame, it is the times. He should have lived in Athens, in the palmy days of Grecian oratory. What would Demosthenes have been by the side of the giant Upton? Echo answers "What?"
This proved the decisive blow. Upton was cut off like Hamlet, senior,
"Even in the blossoms of his sin."