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Show Made Famons by a Speech. Isaiah T. Montgomery finds himself famous. No other man within muny months has made so vigorous a speech or been more quoted. Of course he waked to activity long ago, or he would not be prominent now. He is a man of color, a dark mulatto, and the member for Bolivar Boli-var county of the constitutional convention conven-tion of Mississippi. Ee was born May 21, 1847, on the celebrated Davis plantation planta-tion in Mississippi, was taught to read by a slave of Jefferson Davis, and to write- by his own father, also a slave. He became private secretary, and to some ' extent confidential agent of his qwner, Joseph E. Davis, brother of Jef- ISAIAH T. MONTGOMERY. ferson, and after the war toon acquired sufficient property to buy the old Davis plantation. He had served on the Federal Fed-eral gunboats during the war and resided resid-ed some time in the north. Once he lost all in an unfortunate venture, but recovered re-covered and acquired a competency. He then founded a colony of colored people in the Yazoo district, where he now conducts con-ducts an extensive business. When the constitutional convention had wrangled long on the issue of an educational as against a property qualification quali-fication for the suffrage he rose and declared de-clared for tbe former. It would,, he said, disfranchise 123,334 colored voters and but 11,889 white. rYet in behalf of hia people he "laid this fearful sacrifice on the altar of peace," and asked the whites in return to guarantee concord and justice. ' - - |