I had lain too close to this
soaked mass of Democracy, and was drunk from absorption."
This was more than the Governor could stand, and, amidst the shouts and
laughter of the assembled multitude, he left the stand, and declined to
meet again, before the people, the young Ajax Telemon of the Whig
party.
The memory of that campaign will probably never be forgotten in
Mississippi. Mothers, in stories of Prentiss, tell it now to their
children, and it and he have become a tradition of the early days of
Mississippi. The election terminated in the choice of Prentiss and
Wood, by a small majority; but the certificate was given, through the
basest fraud, to Claiborne and Gholson.
This was contested before the House of Representatives in Congress
assembled, and the contestants permitted to be heard on the floor of
the House. It was here, in the presence of the assembled wisdom of the
nation, Prentiss was to sustain the reputation which had preceded him,
and gloriously did he do it. When he rose to commence his speech, all
was silent, and every face expressed deep and excited expectation.
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