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Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, Carthaginians, and Grecians. Instead of studying the plans of campaigns, marches, and battles, he is poring over the history of nations twenty-five hundred years gone by.* The general-in-chief of our army is president of the assembly balls, as our daily papers tell us, and, report says, night after night waltzing with little misses in their teens; and, when not at that, writing miserable plays for the stage. † There is no laudable spirit of enterprise and emulation in the army, navy, or any part of the public service. Why this state of things? Because promotion to office does not now depend on merit, but by bowing, fawning, and cringing, in the palace; for all power is there. When the chief there frowns and stamps his foot, the whole menial pack fear and tremble. We are thrown upon evii and degenerate times; our government has every symptom of a speedy dissolution.

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When the gentleman from Massachusetts charged treason upon a part of this House, the majority huzzahed, clapped their hands, and shouted, enacting just such scenes as took place in the convention during the Jacobinacal times of the reign of terror, in the days of Marat and Robespierre. When a man was denounced in the House by either of those blood-thirsty tyrants, the members of the convention applauded in a tumultuous manner, and immediately voted the arrest of the member denounced, however innocent. Before night the guillotine received its victim, and he was numbered with the dead.

The storms of misfortune and adversity have been threatening us from every quarter-east, west, north, and south. They have gathered over our heads, and threaten every moment to burst upon us, and destroy our liberties forever. I put my hope and trust in God, who has saved us in all our trials and difficulties heretofore, and that He will yet preserve us free and independent, and dispel the clouds now lowering over us; and that He will give us once more a clear, serene, political sky.”

After, and as it was believed as the result of this speech, Mr. Cambreleng, who had been a most useful member and the acknowledged leader of the administration party in the House to a very great extent, lost his controlling influence which, notwithstanding unquestioned talents, he was never able to regain.

The first session of the Twenty-fourth Congress ended July 4, 1836, and the closing or short session convened December 5th following. Mr. Hardin was present at its opening, and participated in discussing many of the questions before it. His first speech referred to the President's message. He opposed a reduction of the tariff that was urged because of a surplus in the treasury. He insisted that that surplus had not been produced by the tariff, but from sales of public lands, which had of late been specially active. When these sales fell

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off, as they inevitably would, the tariff would produce no surplus." Thus he reasoned. He also made speeches on granting lands to revolutionary soldiers, against the admission of Michigan, on the establishment of a boundary between the United States and Texas, etc. None of his speeches are reported, except meagerly, and that against the admission of Michigan, which was of great length, not at all. In the last speech he ever made in Congress, February 28, 1837, he took occasion to manifest his sympathy for Texas, then struggling for independence. The following is from the report:

"The Government of the United States appears unwilling to step into the struggle between Texas and Mexico, and intends to leave them as they are. For his own part, if it was left to him, he would recognize Texas the moment she maintained her sovereignty, for her territory was large enough to constitute a separate and a great empire. She possessed more territory than Portugal or than Holland; less, it might be, than Spain and France, but certainly more than Great Britain and Ireland. Thus, her territory was large enough to form an independent nation, and, as to her government, that also was organized and in full operation, as much as was the government of these United States. He thought, therefore, we ought not to wait to make this recognition until Mexico consented to the act. In our own case, France acknowledged our independence four years before Great Britain abandoned her pretensions over us; and, at a posterior period, we ourselves recognized the republican government of France, when all Europe was in arms against her, refusing to acknowledge her, and asserting, sword in hand, the claims of the worn-down family of Bourbons. Also, in after periods of the French revolution, we acknowledged, from time to time, the different governments to which France was subjected, and why? Because they were governments de facto."

At midnight, March 3, 1837, the second session of the Twentyfourth Congress adjourned, and Mr. Hardin's congressional career was finally ended.

CHAPTER XXI.

MR. HARDIN'S HUMOR.

T is not proposed to dissect humor, nor deal with its anatomy or physiology. No kind of analysis of that insoluble quality will be attempted. No effort will be made to partition wit from humor or discuss their points of difference. The latter may be the atmosphere and the former the flash, as an excellent writer has said, but there is not a little uncertainty in the ideas conveyed by such metaphors.* Whoever attempts to run the dividing line between them will encounter that ancient cause of fruitful litigation in Kentucky courts—an "interference "-which, being interpreted, signifies the case where the boundary of one tract of land overlapped another.

What, indeed, is ridi-
Humor is a faculty

Wit and humor seem often an irregular species of logic-not to be classed either in the inductive or analytic category. They are the merry handmaids of argument, if no more. cule but a form of argumentum ad absurdum? that comes by nature. It can be cultivated and improved, it is true, but nature must first have provided the faculty. The enchanting voice of the prima donna is inherited, however much art may develop and educate it. The genius of humor dwells only with its elect. The faculty requires or concurs with certain mental aptitudes-close observation and acute discrimination, both as to character and events; a quick fancy, readiness at comparison and discerning similitudes and contrasts, as well as the power of accurate expression. There must exist a quick-an intuitive power of tracing effect to cause, the art of clear and ready reasoning, and a keen scent for sophistry. A prime quality in a wit is a deep and exact knowlege of human nature-its virtues and its frailties.

Humor has had its ages and fashions, and always its latitude, its nationality, and caste. The jest of the tropic would freeze in the arctic. The witticism of the cultured East seems emasculated in the rude and stalwart West. The humor of French and German jokes, for the most part, is not translatable to English perception. Bon mots are handed around on separate dishes in kitchen and drawing-room. If, as some say, the fun of the Pharaohs yet survives in modern anecdote, doubtless much of its Egyptian flavor has been lost.

*H. R. Haweis, in "American Humorists," page 7.

It is interesting to note the progress of American humor. That progress has been concurrent with the advancement of the country in other things. It is difficult in these changed times to appreciate the humor of the artifice practiced by the settler of the wilderness, besieged behind a tree by an Indian ensconced behind another. The latter is induced to empty his rifle at the white man's hat exposed on a stick and thus the siege is raised and fresh Indian furnished the vultures. Falstaff and Prince Hal never felt half so merry over a jest as did the hunters of the West over such as this. Davy Crockett's hunting adventures and pioneer campaigning followed and sated the hunger for fun, even as Mark Twain, Bill Arp, and others of that ilk have likewise served this generation.

The light of the twinkling eye, the suggestive intonation of the voice, and certain tricks of the facial muscles are potent auxiliaries of the humorous faculty. Indeed, there is no doubt they are ever premonitory or concurrent symptoms. There is also noticeable about. the wit, not precisely a self-abnegation, but he throws his soul unreservedly into the jest. He is void of pretense, is candid and sincere -at least for the time being. All these attributes, and more, may be predicated of Mr. Hardin. He had the faculty of seeing all sides of every subject and detecting its strong as well as its vulnerable points. Especially did he discover readily its weak, absurd, and ludicrous aspects. To him human nature was an open book and he turned its secret pages. His powers of description were of the highest order. "It was a theory of Ben Hardin's," observes Dr. Rob Morris, "advanced in conversation on this subject, that there is only a certain amount of real wit in human nature. It is impossible, he said, that any large addition shall ever be made to it. Like the gold in the hills, the quantity is limited. and it costs dollar for dollar to get it out. He illustrated the theory by referring to a set of comic almanacs before him, showing that by beating the gold almost invisibly thin it may be spread over a vast surface."

Certainly wit and humor have their limitations, beyond which they can not reach. Each wit has his vein, and he must be content with its product and resigned at its ultimate exhaustion. John Phoenix. and Artemus Ward each charmed in his own way, but each had doubtless displayed the brightest jewels of his wit before the casket was sealed forever. Yet their transmigrated spirits may sparkle in another generation, as Swinburne hath it, making mirth for us all." Humor is, like the clouds, ever old and ever new-as old as the race, and as fresh as the last sunset.

CHAPTER XXI.

MR. HARDIN'S HUMOR.

T is not proposed to dissect humor, nor deal with its anatomy or physiology. No kind of analysis of that insoluble quality will be attempted. No effort will be made to partition wit from humor or discuss their points of difference. The latter may be the atmosphere and the former the flash, as an excellent writer has said, but there is not a little uncertainty in the ideas conveyed by such metaphors. * Whoever attempts to run the dividing line between them will encounter that ancient cause of fruitful litigation in Kentucky courts-an "interference"-which, being interpreted, signifies the case where the boundary of one tract of land overlapped another.

They are the

What, indeed, is ridi

Humor is a faculty improved, it is true,

Wit and humor seem often an irregular species of logic-not to be classed either in the inductive or analytic category. merry handmaids of argument, if no more. cule but a form of argumentum ad absurdum? that comes by nature. It can be cultivated and but nature must first have provided the faculty. The enchanting voice of the prima donna is inherited, however much art may develop and educate it. The genius of humor dwells only with its elect. The faculty requires or concurs with certain mental aptitudes-close observation and acute discrimination, both as to character and events; a quick fancy, readiness at comparison and discerning similitudes and contrasts, as well as the power of accurate expression. There must exist a quick-an intuitive power of tracing effect to cause, the art of clear and ready reasoning, and a keen scent for sophistry. A prime quality in a wit is a deep and exact knowlege of human nature-its virtues and its frailties.

Humor has had its ages and fashions, and always its latitude, its nationality, and caste. The jest of the tropic would freeze in the arctic. The witticism of the cultured East seems emasculated in the rude and stalwart West. The humor of French and German jokes, for the most part, is not translatable to English perception. Bon mots are handed around on separate dishes in kitchen and drawing-room. If, as some say, the fun of the Pharaohs yet survives in modern anecdote, doubtless much of its Egyptian flavor has been lost.

H. R. Haweis, in "American Humorists," page 7.

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