Lynchburg Virginian. [volume] (Lynchburg [Va.]) 1829-185?, 1851-04-24
amid OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES


Among the papers into which they have
been copied, are the Wytheville RepaJii-
can and the Danville Register; the former
of which, accompanies their publication
with an approval of Campbell's suggestion
SO far as making Plank Roads from this
| place to Franklin and Patrick, is concern
cd, but declines to express preference for
either market whilst the latter very pro-
perly uses the proposition as thebasis Of an
appeal to the Danville interests and the
friends of its railroad, for renewed activi-
ty and energy" in constructing the Dan
vile and Wytheville Turnpike Whilst
the Register manifests a conmendable and
natural zeal in guarding the interests Of
Danville, against which, it holds, the pro-
posedimprovements terminating in Lynch
burg, would initiate, Yet it maniiests, in
the discussion, an equally commendable
spirit which, in what we have to say on the
subject, we shall deem it no disparagement
to initiate.
Unfortunately for Virginia, her Press
and her Politicians have been too much In
fuenced, in the consideration of the many
propositions that have been presented for
the development of her resources, by local
attachments and narrow-minded prejudi-
ces, which can recognise no merit in a
scheme that is not obviously designed to
benefit the particular section in which the
one or the other may happen to be located.
This spirit of selfshness has diiiuscd itself
throughout the State and has taken pos
session ofall classes in all communities !;
and to its influence, Virginia owes, in no
small share, her present bacbwardness in
the march of Improvement Had the
press and the Legislators, backed by their
several communities whose interests were
imagined to be antagonistical, but which in
reality should harmonic in the great pur-
pose Of making Virginia what Nirginia's
God designed her to be, the greatest State
of her sisterhood-had these manifested
some hberality, some concession, some uni
ty ofpurpose in the patriotic discharge of
a common obligation to a common parent,
we should not now have to lament the
squandered means and, to that extent
crippled energies Of the treasury; nor, yet
worse, the opposing prcjudices and fratri-
cidal rivalry which, like mushrooms of
nights growth, have sprung ont of this
system, to poison, with their pestilential
stencil, the very atmosphere in which the
true spirit Of improvement can alone sur
vive- The great fault of Virginia has
been, and is still to some extent, the want
Of system in the projection and prosecu-
ton of her public works or, perhaps we
might say with some propriety, the adop-
ton Of bad system-costly in its execu-
ton, slow in its prosecution, and doubt
full of success, both in its accomplishment,
and its ultimate adaptation to the ends
claimed for it by itsprojectors. This want
Of a settled policy, this ncga;ion of de-
clarcd will, this fixed and ruling indecis-
ion, have only tended to evoke the very
evils ofwhlch we complain. Each neigh
bourhood, ambitious of railroad honours
or turnpike distinctions, has been prompt to
disadvantage Of this state of things,and to
urge It's CLAIM and importance before the
Legislature with a pertinacity that neither
brookcd opposition nor tolerated defeat;
and the result of all this has BEEN the com
bination of different interests, common on
ly, it may be, in the absence of merit in
their several schemes of plundering the
treasury, and united only in developing,
not the resources of the State, but that svs-
TEN Of Legislation, aptly and cmphatically
characterized as the iog-roljng. All be-
ing applicants, all became jealous; and as
all could not be accommodated, the disap-
pointed became soured against the success
ful,and generally sought to disparage every
work IN which they were not immediate
" and personally interested. Thus the
whole State Is cut up into petty cliques
which have almost shingled over every
foot OF its territory with railroad projections
and turnpike propositions, until it has be-
come almost impossible to propose any
new scheme, however meritorious in it.
self, that does not conflict with an assumed
vested right in some neighbourhood plan
for developing the inexhaustible resour-
ces" with which each precinct imagines
itself surcharged. In this sense, Virginia
is the greatest Internal Improvement State
in the Union. They all ego ;hcir death"
for Improvement, if that Improvement con-
sists in making roads to their county town
or cleaning out their spring branches.
Whilst the improvements in which Dan
vile and Lynchburg are engaged, cannot
be held to be obnoxious to these local OBJ
jections, they have heretofore been the
means Of exciting that very spirit Of jeal-
ousy we have deprecated, between what is
assumed to be the rival interest of the two
towns. We are well aware that in touch
ing upon this subject we are trenching up
on tender ground. But, conscious ofno de-
sire ''to probe an old wound that has alrea-
dy bled enough" and stimulated rather BY
the hope ofapplying an emollient, that may
help to beautify the cicatrix which time
and the healthful action ofthe system have
already formed, we shall attempt briefly
to show that as there is really no antago-
ni5m Of interests, SO there ought to be no
rivalry, between the two towns, except in
a landahIc fsnnrt To cxcnI cnch ltl,e, .,