Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1851-04-30
STANTON SPECTATOR,
STATE OF TIE COUNTRY.

Seldom has the Country presented the
appearance Of more profound reDose. In
no quarter of the horizon can we discover
any considerable evidences of political ex-
sitement, or Of commercial distress. Here
and there, few restless and malignant ag-
itators, who abhor public tranquility as much
as Nature does vacuum, may be found
sedulously blowing up the expiring embers
of sectional prejudice and popular passion,
and endeayoring to perpetuate the elemen-
tai strife upon which their existence de-
ponds; but these efforts are evidently made
IN vain. The excitability upon which they
have heretofore operated, has been exhaust
ed, aud the great masses of the people be-
gin to exhibit stoical indifference to those
appeals which have so often and so long a.
reused them with false alarms, and inter-
ruptcd their industrial and peaceful pursuits.
When we look back to the long ''reign of
terror" under the JACKSON, VAN buren,,
TYLER, and Polk Administrations, we can
not but congratulate the Country on account
Of the new era upon which we trust it is en-
tsring, under a more uniform, decided, and
conservative policy. The Federal Execu-
tive is now in the hands of a genuine Wing
Administration, opposed in principle to all
those disturbing influences which have so
long kept the public mind in a state Of agi-
taton and alarm, and which had almost de-
stroyed the confidence designed to exist be-
tween the people and the government. We
have no approximations, now, of rash inno-
vations upon the settled habits of the Coun
t'y. The unprincipled diplomacy that play
ed the Jockey towards Great Britain, and
the bully towards Mexico, is at an end, and
we are encouraged to hope that both the
dignity and peace of the nation viii be care
fully maintained, with the frmness becom-
ing its power and it's character.
The large expectation fspecie which has
been for some time going on from our ports,
is certainly bad feature in our commercial
affairs. Should it continue, it is evident
that the Country must deeply suffer in the
end. 1t is one Of the fruits of the tariff sys-
tenn entailed upon us by those dynastes
that have passed away. The people will
readily understand that the present Admin
lstration cannot be fairly chargeable with any
OF those evils which flow, directly or remote
iy fromthe experimental policy Of the Jack
sonian succession. The Opposition contin-
ne to have decided majority in both Houses
of Congress, and it is settled principle of
the Wing Party to throw the chief respon-
sibllity OF legislation upon that department
of the government to which the business of
legislation has been assigned by the Consti-
tuition. We must therefore wait patiently
for sound Wing majority in Congress, to
apply some remedy to this lamcntable state
of things, in which the balance Of trade is
so much against US.
Those false prophets who have so freqcnt-
ly rent their robes over the desoations Of
the Iand, ana propheSled with hi-conceaIed
satisfaction its immediate ruin, have been,
at last, most signally shamed by the failure
of their predictions. The wished-for crisis
has eluded them, whilst they were endeay-
oring to delude others, and the Union they
sought to dissolve by the force Of an mean
tation, still stands mistaken, a monument of
the principles upon which it was founded,
and ofthe weakness Of those who have been
plotting its destruction. The law has been
enforced without drop Of blood being shed,
and at paltry expense, in those very COM
munities where it had been alleged to be so
unpopular that its execution would be i'm
possible; and those who secretly hoped for
a sanguinary collision, have been compelled
to bear witness to its complete triumph
We repeat that the Country has cause for
profound satisfaction in view of its present
condition, and of the securities afforded for
the future By the character of its Executive
Government.
CO. Tba Fiudjc1Ior ci,ofes Of lan,rtb .