The opening gun of what was to be a sanguinary combat was fired by a Washington correspondent of the Enquirer, under date of January 16, 1846:
“I am much mistaken if Mr. John Hampden Pleasants does not intend, with his new paper, to out-Herod Herod—to take the lead of the Intelligencer, if possible, in exciting Abolitionism by showing Southern Whig sympathy in their movements; and thus, for the benefit of Whiggery, to cheat them into the belief that the Southern patrons of either of these gentlemen are ceasing to detest their incendiary principles, and beginning, like the Whigs of the North, to coalesce with them.
“They agitate to affect public opinion at the South, and Messrs. Gales and Pleasants practically tell them to go on—that they are succeeding to admiration.”
It was a poor shot—more like a boy’s play with a toy gun than a marksman’s aim. But the bullet was poisoned by the reference to Abolitionism. That was never ineffective. A friend in conservative Philadelphia called Mr. Pleasants’ notice to the attack, which had up to that time escaped his eyes:
“I have d——d this as a lie every time I had a chance, although I believe that you, like myself—a Virginian and a slaveholder—regard Slavery as an evil.”
Mr. Pleasants replied in terms that were singularly mild for a fighting political editor.
I may say, here, that it is a gross blunder to compare the methods of party-writers and orators of to-day with those of sixty years ago, to the disadvantage of the former. They fought, then, without the gloves, and as long as breath lasted.
“I confess my surprise, nay, my regret,” wrote Mr. Pleasants, “that the present editors of the Enquirer should, by publication, have indorsed, so far as that sort of indorsement can go, and without any explanatory remark, the misrepresentations of their Washington correspondent. They ought, as public men, to know that I stand upon exactly the same platform with their father in respect to this subject. In 1832 we stood, for once, shoulder to shoulder, and since that time we have both expressed, without intermission, the same abhorrence of Northern Abolition, and the same determination, under no circumstances which could be imagined, to submit, in the slightest degree, to its dictation or intrusion....
“These were also the views—namely, that Slavery was an evil, and ought to be got rid of, but at our own time, at our own motion, and in our own way—of Washington, Jefferson, Henry, George Mason, the two Lees, Madison, Monroe, Wirt, and all the early patriots, statesmen, and sages of Virginia—WITHOUT EXCEPTION!
“Such are my opinions still, and if they constitute me an Abolitionist, I can only say that I would go further to see some of the Abolition leaders hanged than any man in Virginia, especially since their defeat of Mr. Clay.