the hazard of the horrors of Fort Pulaski and the sweat-box—­the favorite instruments of torture of this infamous defendant of an irresponsible Congress, and now for personal safety, exiled from home and country, finds protection under a foreign flag.  This one act alone will be sufficient to immortalize the name of Charles J. Jenkins, and to swell with pride the heart of every true Georgian who aided to place such a man in such a position, at such a time.  Governor Jenkins still lives, and if the prayers of a virtuous and oppressed people may avail on high, will be spared to reap in better days his reward in their gratitude.

An exalted intellect, unaccompanied with exalted virtue, can never constitute greatness.  In whatever position placed, or whatever inducements persuade, virtue and a conscientious conviction of right must regulate the mind and conduct of man to make him great.  The tortuous course of politics, made so by unprincipled men, renders the truly upright man usually a poor politician.  He who possesses the capacity to discern the true interests of a country, and who will virtuously labor to secure and promote those interests, defying opposition and fearlessly braving the calumnies of interested, corrupt men, organized into parties—­which so often lose sight of the interests of their country, in promoting party ends, or from inflamed passions—­is the great man.  He whose pedestal is virtue, and whose action is honest, secures the respect of his own age, and becomes the luminary of succeeding ages.  Stern honesty often imposes unpleasant duties—­strict obedience to its behests, not unfrequently involves apparent inconsistencies of conduct; but the conscientious man will disregard these in doing what his judgment determines right—­the only real consistency which sustains a man in his own estimation, and leaves no bitter reflections for the future.  To subserve the cause of right, is always a duty—­not so the cause of party or selfish interest.  All men respect the right, but many have not the virtue to resist wrong.  Ambition prompts for success the expedient:  and hence the laxity of political morals.  This is slipping the cable that the ship may swing from her anchorage and drift with the tide; any minnow may float with the current, but it requires a strong fish to stem and progress against the stream.  A man, to brave obloquy and public scorn, requires strong moral courage; but when his judgment convinces him that he is right, and when he feels that his intentions are pure, conscientious, and sincere, this may ruffle him for a time, but never permanently disturbs his peace or injures his reputation.  The truly great are only known by nobly resisting every temptation to wrong, and braving the world’s condemnation in pursuing and sustaining the right.  It is the soul to which greatness belongs, not the mind.  This latter is too often, in its transcendent greatness, coupled with a mean and degraded soul, which stimulates the mind’s power to the corruption of the masses, and the destruction of public morals, undermining the very basis of society and government.