New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-05-24
TIE VIRGINIA ELECTION.

The Election of the State Government takes
place to-day in Virginia. 1t is an important Oc-
casion All the enterprise and activity of that
old Commonwealth are at once displayed and ex-
hausted in her election conflicts. There is not
a more busy and industrious people in the world
than Nirginians. But they are workmen at the
trade of politics only. They only shine in the
manufacture of partisan paragraphs, political
harangues and great men. Their water-pOwer
lies idle, but their speeches never cease to flow.
The political mill always grinds its full grist,
though every other mill in the State may stop.
Every branch of productive industry Iray Ian
guish, but the trade of Office getting is as brisk
and its professors as nmble as they were in the
memorable era of 90.
Poor Virginia! Her rivers run to the as
they did two centuries ago, but no skllLful or
industrious hand gathers mp their waters and
turns them TO the uses Of man. They flow on
as of old, their banks only marked by deserted
towns exhausted fertility and decayed agri-
culture Slavery has fed from the soil like
swarms of locusts, leaving only desolation in its
train. All over the low belt of country that
faces the ocean letbargy and stagnation reign.
old, are quite depopulated, while others barely
hold their own. Sloth and torpdity and brown
decay cover the landscape The State has been
eur scd with African Slavery.
The universal decline Of every branch of in
dustry throughout the State, except negro
breeding-the ignorance and deterioration of the
inhabitants-the laDguor, the want of thrift the
slack and dOwn-at-the-heel and out-at-theel-
bows condition of the entire COMMUNICATIVE
been the standing theme of Mr. Wises addresses
all through the canvass just terminated. Yet,
strangely enough though naturally enough, he
willfully blinds his eyes to the real cause of the
disease he so boldly probes Like all who sup
port him and all who oppose him, he hugs the
pest of Slavery 10 his bosom with fatal tenacity.
The thing which has weighed like an incubus
on Virginia these fifty years and more, load
ing her down and leaving her in the rear of all
the Free States of the Union-the thing whose
Inevitable results are found in the condition
which Mr.. Wise so much deplcres, and which
be has pictured with so much force and vvacity-
is the thing which all parties and all men (polit-
zeal men) in the State vie with each other in
sustaining, snd in spreading over countries yet
unaffected with the same curse. We see in the
action Of political men and parties at this elec
ton in Virginia to what extent prejudice, ignor
ance and iauaticism may control great Com
monwealth. Throughout the canvass the chic
rivalry exhibited has been TO see which sid,
would do the most TO uphold and Perpetuste tn,
cause of Virginis's downfall and to MAINTAIN
yirsinia's unihrift. Whatever other questions
NAV have excited discussion or oeessioned diyi
sion have been entirely subordinated TO III,
paramount and oyer-zealous labors of both par
ties to cherish the cause Of African Slavery.
As to the comparative prospect of the riva
forces in this election we have but little posi-
tive data for judgment. There are but two
parties in the field-the Old Line Democrats and
the know-Ncthngs-the latter having seemingly