Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/41

 Sketch of Thomas F. Marsh., II. 41

given to the public, with characteristic irritability at the close of his second, he severely reprimanded the reporters, and ordered them " not to attempt again to pass upon the public their infernal gibberish for his English." They took him at hig word, and left his speeches for some time unreported, and took their revenge by firing off at him their " paper bullets of the brain " in their letters written from Wash- ington. At this session Mr. Marshall separated from the Whigs on many very important measures. He spoke and voted against Clay's bank bill, and spoke with astonishing power. The speech is unfor- tunately lost, never having been reported in whole or in part. He was, he said, in favor of a Bank of the United States, but was opposed to the form of the charter then presented. He voted against the bankrupt law, and was opposed to striking out of the Constitution the veto power. He had opinions on all the political questions of the time, and had the courage of his opinions, and was always sure to maintain them by a vehement and splendid eloquence. He con- tended that he was a Whig, and that the Whig party had departed from their long cherished and time- honored principles. He launched the shafts of his sarcasm at Tyler's administration, on the floor of the House, saying that when the history of the country was written that administration might be put in a parenthesis, and defined from Lindley Murray: "A parenthesis is a clause of a sentence enclosed between black lines or brackets, which should be pronounced in a low tone of voice, and may be left out altogether without injuring the sense."

While Mr. Marshall was in Congress, one of those periodical tem- pests of temperance swept over the land. It finally reached the halls of the national council. A congressional " total abstinence society " was organized. Mr. Marshall had won a somewhat unen- viable reputation for excessive conviviality. He became a member of the society and its most eloquent spokesman. In 1842 he deliv- ered upon the floor of Congress an "Address on Temperance," which for splendor of illustration, justness of observation, and beauty of diction has never been excelled in this country. That the reader may judge somewhat of his style of oratory, we append some extracts from the address :

"Temperate men refusing to join a temperance society! With- holding their name and influence! Nay, throwing, by their refusal, the weight of both against us! It is unnatural; it is unintelligible; it is cruel. It is most cruel, in those untainted by this destroying vice, to cast the whole weight of the cause upon its wretched victims, writhing and struggling with the chain which darkly binds their