He was saying, "Before the banking venture, my neighbors sent me to Nashville in 1870 to help craft a new constitution for our state, a new organ of government that some would use to circumscribe the changes brought by battle's blood. The stratagem was to return the character of society to be as much like the pre-war years as possible. The restored antebellum leadership-conservative Democrats and Whigs, former Confederate generals and officers, the planter, owner class-desired to restrict voting and control democracy. Negro suffrage was to be restricted and poor whites also discouraged from voting by means of a Poll Tax.
"No, Sir, No I would have none of it. I went against my own interest. They tried to get Jones of Old Lincoln to keep quiet and let the poll tax provision glide through to approval. Poll tax, sir, you know what that means! A man must pay a tax to vote! Blasphemy, sir! Free men, free vote! Darnation the right of Negroes to be Americans had been sorted out in four bloody, wasteful terrible years of folly. Everyone had suffered to some measure or other. Sir, the powers wanted the poll tax to keep blacks and poor whites from the greatest benefit of citizenship, voting. Never sir would I be part of that. Popular government, sir, is the safeguard of liberty. There shall be no great exalted political ruling elite in this democracy, no, no not with my acquiescence!
"They were called 'redeemers,' those old power brokers that reclaimed their governance in Tennessee. 'Redeemers'…not hardly 'redeemers' as far as I'm concerned…pied pipers of ruin and grief they!
"Dear Sir, I took the floor of the constitutional convention and, with General John C. Brown, an old Whig friend from over in Pulaski, in the chair, told the would-be rescuing pompous, grasping solons that their poll tax proposal was a cruel and unjust restriction of republican government. I pled for its rejection. Free men, free vote! I was rebuffed. They rejected my protest and incorporated the poll tax in the new proposed constitution. They treated me as a traitor and sir I know how that quick's. I packed my grip and came home. The mighty lords had resumed control of the realm!
"When the State Treasurer sent me pay for my service as delegate to the State Constitutional Convention, I sent it back. I didn't sign that new state covenant, either, sir. No sir, my God, not Jones!"
Was his speech an impassioned appeal for my recognition of his place in the scheme of things? Did he need my affirmation of his understanding of what was best for his people and for the ideals of a democracy? Was he being a principled leader rather than a hack politician? It seemed to me that was the case in this instance.