Mr. Peyton’s Speech in the Canvass of 1840
On his return to Virginia, such was his taste and so pressing the nature of his private affairs, that he took little active part in the celebrated canvass.
But upon the occasion of a grand mass meeting at Staunton on the 28th of October, 1840, he spoke in the Court House to a crowded audience of ladies and gentlemen, and made a magnificent speech, showing up the political life and character of Martin Van Buren, his political tergiversations, intrigue, subserviency, treachery and heartless selfishness. It was like a prosecution of a prisoner at the bar, and persons who were present declared that they had never seen or heard anything like or to equal to it.