Under
these mortal stabs, delivered coolly and deliberately, the authors of
public abuses shrank, recoiled, and sought safety in silence. They
writhed, but knew the power of their adversary too well to reply to
him. When once or twice they did so, his rejoinder was more mortal than
his first attack. The whole country read the _Examiner_, from the chief
officers of the administration to the humblest soldier in the trenches.
It shaped the opinions of thousands, and this great influence was not
due to trick or chance. It was not because it denounced the Executive
in terms of the bitterest invective; because it descended like a wild
boar on the abuses or inefficiency of the departments; but because this
journal, more, perhaps, than any other in the South, spoke the public
sentiment, uttered its views with fearless candor, and conveyed those
views in words so terse, pointed, and trenchant--in such forcible and
excellent English--that the thought of the writer was driven home, and
remained fixed in the dullest apprehension.
The _Examiner_, in one word, had become the controlling power, almost,
of the epoch. Its views had become those even of men who bitterly
stigmatized its course. You might disapprove of its editorials often,
and regret their appearance--as I did--but it was impossible not to be
carried onward by the hardy logic of the writer: impossible not to
admire the Swift-like pith and vigor of this man, who seemed to have
re-discovered the lost well of undefiled English.
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