January 15, 1903
MANY YEARS AGO
John Bell Was a Great Man--Now Nearly Forgotten.
A NATIONAL CHARACTER FOR FORTY YEARS.
The Marion Press, published in the county of Crittenden, referring to one of Tennessee's most distinguished sons of the past, Hon. John Bell, who was the head of the Whig ticket in 1860, and had as his second place associate on the ticket the Hon. Edward Everett, Massachusetts' second most distinguished son, says Mr. Bell at one time owned large mining interests in Crittenden and Union counties, and moved to Union county to look after his interest, but the Bells Mines, a voting precinct in Crittenden, is all that is left of the once great name. As is well remembered Bell and Everett met decisive defeat.
John Bell deserved to have had a longer reign in the memory of the people of Kentucky than that credited to him by the Press. He was elected to congress in 1827, at the age of thirty years, and was continued in congress through successive elections for 14 years, and was elected Speaker of the House in 1834. He was appointed Secretary of War by President Harrison in 1841, and in 1847 was elected United States Senator and again in 1853. In 1860, when the war cloud appeared on the horizon he was nominated by the constitutional Union party for President and Edward Everett for Vice President, at the time Lincoln was nominated by the Republicans and the Democrats split at Charleston, one wing nominating Stephen A. Douglass and the other John C. Breckinridge.
John Bell was for many years associated in the practice of law at Nashville with the Hon. Frank Gorin, formerly of this city and of Glasgow. The most distinguished honors are surely short lived when men who are almost forgotten have occupied the distinguished place in the nation's history in fifty years that were honored by John Bell, who came upon the stage of existence in the last century and shed lustre upon the country's history in forty years.--Bowling Green Times-Democrat.
Source: Crittenden Press. (Marion, Ky.) 1879-1907, January 15, 1903, Image 2 - Chronicling America - The Library of Congress.
[My comments are in brackets.]
