The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1859-03-15
THE CANVASS IN vIRGNIA-MR. IEIoHER

THE CANVASS IN vIRGINIA-MR LETCHER.
Mr.. Letoher, after a service Of distinguished use
tulness and industry in Congress for a period of eight
years, is now before the people of Virginia a candi-
date by democratic nomination for their chief execu-
tive office. With those who have observed the habit
ual generosity and justice of the Virginia people TO
the men who have served them faithfully, industri-
ously, and effectively in public life, there is no doubt
of the verdict which viii be rendered by them in
the issue between Mr.. Letoher and Mr.. Goggin. IL
would be a sad commentary upon the capacity of
the people to appreciate and their readiness to re-
ward valuable public service, if a veteran servant
who had proved himself so honest, capable, and
faithful to the constitution, in the fullest Jeffersonian
sense, by ten years of continued public labor, as Mr..
Letcher, should be repudiated in favor of a political
adventurer long obsolete and broken down, whose
chief qualification for the competitorship consisted
in his Willingness to take a defeat, and his anxiety
for the temporary netoriety of a ~two-months' can
vass ON the stump.
we 90 not know any more important principle
logically involved in the Virginia campaign, than the
one whether q man who has won for himself the first
rank in Congress by industry and well-direoted abil-
ity, and who has served his constituents, his State,
and the country with an efficiency and fidelity which
has extorted the commendation of foes AID friends,
shall be preferred to a man whose own constituency
long ago repudiated him, and who owes his
present candidacy not to any superiority of merit or
ability over other gentlemen of the Opposition"
in his State, to whom he is confessedly inferior, but
to the fact that he is ambitious for a notoriety and
q defeat for which his betters have no appetite. We
10 noE Lnovy m ,r;nciy1aa of nnl;f;np tbot could
legitimately enter into a canvass with a set of
politicians who are content, for want of prin-
ciples, measures, or even a name, to battle under
the tatterdemalion flag Of Opposition" That Vir-
ginia, who has always prided herself on the genu-
ipeness of her political faith and her answering
support of it through evil and good report, upon the
purity of her political pedigree and the immaculacy
of her political virtue, should now be expected to
take up with a ~mongrel, hybrid, nondescript "oppo,
%sition,' having neither paternity nor maternity, a
bastard founding without name, lineage, tribe, caste
or class, the offspring of a promiscuous amalgama-
ton of the refuse dregs of rejected political par
ties, is an idea which would seem too preposteroua
for the giddy head even of so vain a notoriety-lover
as Mr.. Goggin. 1t would be a remarkable freak Of
popular caprice if the people of Virginia should
after a long career of unbending political con
~sistency, accept from a mongrel political "opposi,
ton a candidate whose race is an experiment upon
their sober good sense, and whose ambition is Of
the kind which would be hattered by the honor of a
-a~Snsmia mas neen repeatedly temntnI a.
from her political faith but up to this time she has
been tempted in vain. She was solicited to vote for
Harrison, her own son, against Van Buren,, the then
representative of her creed but like the faith
full Isaac of old, she hesitated not to sacrifice her
wellbeloved son upon the altar of duty. Again,
she was called upon to support another son in Cen
eral Taylor, against General Cass, the champion of
her faith and again she made a sacrifice of her ma
ternal affections in obedience to her principles. Gen
eral Scott, too, for whom she voted swords and
medals, and in whose splendid military fame she
cherishes a pride as exalted as that of the mother
of the Gracchi, was q candidate for her support in
opposition to a comparatively unknown man of New
Hampshire but, faithful always to her political
principles, she discarded her hero not that she
loved him less, but Rome more. The inference
would not be violent, that a Commonwealth who
could sacrifice such sons as Harrison, Taylor, and
Scott to her principles, will not hesitate long
to put the knife to Goggin. 1t is hardly to be
supposed when such a son as John Letcher stands
before her, honored of the whole Union, a veteran in
the public service, the tried and approved represent
ative of her political faith, that she will turn her
back upon him and her sacred principles, and betake
herself to an Opposition without name or creed
endeavoring to thrust upon her q man whose candi.
dacy is a burlesque upon all political consistency.