Judge Thompson, in delivering his opinion on the case, decided that the original order of the County Court obtained by Mr. Peyton was a valid and legal order, and that the remedy which the other parties had, if, indeed, the public convenience required that the old road should be kept open, was to petition the Court under the general road law of Virginia to open the road de novo—thus deciding the whole case in Mr. Peyton's favor. Thus ended a controversy which had excited a degree of feeling rarely exhibited in a case where so small a pecuniary, or property interest was involved.
PROTECTS A WEAK MINDED GIRL.
I remember Mr. Peyton's personal appearance and manners well. He made a great impression on me as a youth and I never knew any man who had more of what Edmund Burke styled the "chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound." His humanity and sense of right were deeply aroused in a case which occurred in Bath county in 1842, in which a man for speculative purposes sought to take the person and property of a girl of weak mind from the custody of her brothers. He was represented by John W. Brockenbrough, afterwards United States Judge for Western Virginia. Mr. Peyton appeared for the girl and her brothers and in opposition to the proposition made by Brockenbrough's client delivered an impromptu speech in which the mean, selfish, cruel and avaricious nature of the proposition was so clearly and mercilessly exposed that Brockenbrough did not even attempt to reply, and the presiding Judge E. S. Duncan, a half-brother of Judge John J. Allen, dec'd, instantly decided that the custody of the girl and her property should remain in the hands of her brothers. It was evident that Mr. Peyton's high and generous nature was filled with indignation at what he regarded as a most atrocious proposition, and he spoke with an animation, warmth and energy, probably never exceeded in any other effort of his long and distinguished professional career.
Senex.
Spectator, 1891.
LETTER FROM JOHN HOWE PEYTON, ESQ., TO THE COMMITTEE OF THE AMHERST FESTIVAL.
Staunton, October 8th, 1843.
Gentlemen:
Your letter of the 2nd instant inviting me on behalf of the Whigs of Amherst county, to be present at a festival to be held at Amherst Court house, on the 19th of the present month, for the promotion of the Whig cause, has just reached me. I regret, that for reasons unnecessary to detail, it will not be in my power to accept your polite invitation. You judge rightly, however, in supposing that I cordially unite with you in the objects which you have in view. The next Presidential election is a subject so important and so deeply interesting to the nation, that it cannot be taken into consideration too soon. The issues involved in it are the same with those before the people in 1840, and affect so vitally the public welfare, that too much care cannot be bestowed upon our proper organization—not only to prevent the evils arising from misrepresentation and falsehood, by disseminating among the people correct information, but to secure a full and fair expression of the public sentiment. If these issues are fully and fairly explained, together with the mode and manner in which the Whigs have been disappointed in carrying their measures into effect by the lamentable death of President Harrison, I do not fear a different result in the ensuing election from that which occurred in 1840. Our opponents have not yet designated their candidate. We are as yet uninformed whether we are to encounter the subtle abstractions of the South Carolina nullifier, or the wiley artifices of the "Northern man with Southern principles" or whether we are to face both. Not so with the Whigs. Henry Clay is so identified with the Whig cause and with Whig principles, that "all tongues speak of him, and the blear'd sights are spectacled to see him." He is distinctly pointed at by Whigs, in all parts of the Union, as the candidate for this distinguished station.