Richmond daily Whig. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1842-1861, 1856-03-17
RICHMOND WING.
TO CouuEsPONDENrs.
Gov. Wise and the Enquirer.

Our neighbor of the Enquirer engages IN DIM
cult uphill business, when he attempts, as he does
in his paper of Saturday to show that Mr. Wise has
been insulted and outraged in the adoption, by the
American party of Richmond, Of the resolutions we
published on Friday last. Ii is known to all men
that WISE without the slightest pretsxt or provoca-
ton deliberately characterized and denounced the
friends of Fillmore and Donelson both in the North
and in the South as ''muattoes" and members Of a
''mulatto party" And yet, because portion of
these gentlemen refuse to be silent under such al
imputation, and refuse to submit tamely to such
gross inexcusable and slanderous blackguardism
the cry is raised by the Enquirer-and the Ehqu'-
rer alone-that Gov. Wise has been outrageousy
insulted And what is more, the people of Rich
mond are actually threatened with removal of the
Capitol because they cannot be made to surrender
their manhood and their honor, and become the sub
missve aud degraded slaves of the petty tyrant and
vulgarsn at the heai of our State government! To
this threat We have only to reply that the Democra-
tic party have it in their power to do what they
please and if they choose to remove the Capito.
and locate it at some other place, why, let them do
it. We doubt though, whether they will be able to
find place within the broad limits of the State
where wise's "mulatto epistle is not condemned a.
heartily as il is in this city
The Enquirer is mistaken in saying that the Rich
mond W1ig has denounced certain gentlemen of the
LEGISLATURE rs the "Black Thirteen" We used the
unreasonable BLACK List OF Thirteen
Rut we must let our readers have the full benefit
Of the concluding portion of the EHqHirers article
Of Saturday on this subject which is in these words
alt is not forgotten by the people of the State how in
1883 Governor Johnson hooted traduecd aud threa
tened bv Richmond mob And now another Democratic
Governor elected and snoiHed by the people oi Virginia
,sa shan -. Perhaps H..
furate mob rally in front OF the Government House
aud repeat the violence which before so shocked tine
Der ui the State.
sThese insults fall not upon Governor Wise alone but
on the sovereign people OF Virginia, Of whom he Is the
elect and representative. In his person the dignity of the
Commonwealth is impugned, A. we'll the individual
honor of the eighty-oI thousand gentlemen by whose
votes he elected the highest Office Of the STATE
1t be expected that the people of Virginia will
tamey submit such outrages They find some spot
in the State, where the Governor OF the Commonwealth
can reside exempt from violence and insult
We doubt whether any one on earth can read the
foregoing outburst Of resentment and Indignation
against the unofending citizens OF Richmond with
out being Overwhelmingly amused. We should like
for the Enquirer to tell US who 1.-The sovereign
people OF Virginia. Are they the eighty-three
thousand only who supported and voted for Wise at
the last spring election? Do ths seventy-three
thousand who voted against him, constitute, ia the
EHquirer'S estimation, no part OF the sovereign
people" of the State, That they DO not, is the
tural and only inference To he drawn FROM the En-
quirers language. These Seventy-three thousand
Virginia voters have right AT all TO free thought,
free speech, free action. Gov. Wise and his party
alone constitute the sovereign people Of Virginia.
and Of course, they entitled to abuse insult and
lord it over the minority at their pleasure This l.
certainly strange doctrine be proclaimed in the
ears of Virginia freenen, at this time Of day-tlat
seventy three thousand sovereign voters OF the
monweath should be esteemed and treated as the
slaves and vassas Of eighty-three thousand That
these seventy three thousand have right to utter
word or a syllable in condemnation of the denun-
ciatory language employed against them by Gov.
Wise and no right resent in any manner the wan
ton and unprovoked insult which he has seen fit to
hur at them In short, that they in no sense a
portion Of the Sovereign people Of Virginia of
whom Mr. Wise is the "elect and representative e.
That in other words, Mr.. Wise is the representa-
tive" Of the eightythree thousand Democrats mere
ly-though Governor, the representative" Of par
" only and not the Representative" of the whole
people Of the State
We have long been aware that such doctrines a.
those have stated practically the doctrines Of
the Democratic party OF Virginia But it is the first
time, believe, that they have been so distinctly
avowed, and so publicly proclaimed. The Wing and
American voters Of the State may now see in what
estimation they held by the dominant party,
with Wise and the Enquirer at its head. If they
are not slaves in reality these repeated provocations
and insults will only have tendency to confirm
them in their political faith and arouse them to ano-
ther earnest effort to throw off the CALLING and de-
grading yoke which Locofoco supremacy has put up
their necks