Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1859-12-20


Each new grievance is alternately cause and
effect; and if, before resorting to healing coun-
sells, we are determined to run over the dreary
catalogue, to see who was earliest or who has
been most to blame, we engage in controversy
in which there is no arbiter, and of which there
can be no solution. But without reviving the
angry or sorrowful memories of the past, let me,
in all friendliness ask the question-what has
either section to gain by dissolution of the I'm
ion, with reference to that terrible question
which threatens to destroy it2 / ask patriotic
men in both sections to run over in their minds
the causes of complaint which they have, or
think they have, in the existing state of things,
and then ask themselves dispassionately whether
anythingis to be gained, anything to be hoped, by
pushing the present alienation to that fatal
bourne, from which, as from death, there is NO
return2 Will the South gain any greater sta.
bility for her social system, any larger entrance
into the vacant public territorya Will the North
have affected any one object which, by men of
any shade of opinion, extreme or moderate, is
deemed advisable on the contrary, will not ev-
cry evil she desires to remedy be confirmed and
aggravated9 If this view of the subject be cor
rect, what can be more unwise-more suicidal
than to allow these deplorable dissentions to re-.
suit in revolution, which will leave two great
sections of the country in worse condition
than it fnds them with reference to the very OBJ
jects for which they allow themselves to be i'm
PEELED to the dreadful consummation. ZAP
plause.
But shall be told perhaps that all this is i'm
aginary-that the alarm at the South is facti-
tious, or rather groundless panic, for which
there is no substantial cause-6t subject for rid
icule rather than serious anxiety. But | see no
signs of panic in Virginia. except for a few hours
at Harper's Ferry, when in the confusion OF the
| first surprise, and in profound ignorance of the
extent of the danger, the community was for
short time parayzed. / am not sure that q town
of four or five hundred families in this region,
invaded at midnight by resolute band of twen-
ty men, entering the houses of influential citi-
zens, and hurrying them from their beds to q
stronghold previously occupied, and there hold
ing them as hostages am not sure sir, that an
equal panic would not be created till the extent
of the danger was measured. Besides, sir, if the
panic had been much more extensive than it was
the panics of great and brave communities are
no trifes. Burke said he could not frame an in
dictment against whole people; it seems to me
equally in bad taste to try to point sneer at a
State like Virginia. The French are reputed q
gallant and warike people, but the letters from
the late seat Of war tell u.s. that even after the
great victory of Solferino, handful of Austrians,
struggling into village, put corps of the
French army-thousands strong-to fight. A
hundred and fifty men overturned the French
monarchy, on the occasion to which | have al
ready alluded, in ls48. When the circumstan-
ces of tho case are taken into consideration,
suspect it will be agreed that any other commu
nifty in the country similarly situated would have
| haap off tad in tho xUQU pDlQncQ A
conflict of such an unprecedented character, in
which twelve or fourteen persons on the two
sides are shot down in the course of few hours,
appears to me an event at which levity ought to
stand rebuked, and solemn chill to fall upon
every right-thinking man.
fear, sir, from the tone of some of the public
| journals, that we have not made this case our
own. Suppose party of desperate, misguided
men, under resolved and fearless leader, had
been organized in Virginia to come and establish
themselves by stealth in Springfield, in this State.
intending there, after possessing themselves at
the unguarded hour of midnight of the National
Armory, to take advantage of some local cause
of disaffection-say the feui between Protestants
and Catholics, (Which led to very deplorable
occurrence in this vicinity few years ago. to
stir up social revolution; that pixies and rifles
to arm twenty-five hundred men had been pro-
cured by funds raised by an extensive subsorip
ton throughout the South-that at the dead OF
a Sunday night the work of destruction had be-
gun by shooting down an unarmed man who had
refused to join the invading force; that citizens
of the first standing were seized and imprisoned,
three or four others killed, and when, on the en-.
tire failure of the conspiracy, its leader had been
tried, ably defended by counsel from his own
part of the country, convicted and executed ;
that throughout Virginia which sent him forth
on his fatal errend, and the South generally,
funeral bells should be toled, meetings of gym
pathy held, as at the death of some great bene-
factor, and the person who had plotted to put o
pike or a rifle in the hands of twenty-five hun
dred men, to be used against their fellows, in
habitants of the same town, inmates of the same
houses; with an ulterior intention and purpose
of wrapping the whole community ip civil wal
of the deadest and boodiest type, in which q
mans foes should be those of his own household
suppose, say, the person who planned and
plotted this, and with his own hand or that O
his associates acting by his command, had taker
the lives of several fellow beings should be ex-
: toled, canonized, placed on level with the
great heroes of humanity, nay, assimulsted t
the Savior of mankind and all this not the ef-
feet of solitary individual impulse, but the rip'
= IIrQlU vi d 5ySLelUdtlC 6RlbdIlOu pulouSo III
South, unrebuked for years
What, sir, should we feel, think, say unde
: such state Of things2 Should We weigh ever,
phrase OF indignant remonstrance with critica
!, accuracy, and divide our murmurs with nict
discrimination among those whom we might be
leve, however upjustly, to be directly or indi-
, rectly concerned in the murderous aggression
, Mr.. Chairman, those who look upon the existing
H. G., f,at viro,,
, CANT, have, fear, formed very inadequate idei
, of the nature OF such an attempt as that which
was made at Harper's Ferry was intended to be
8 and would have been had it proved successful
, 1t is to want of reflection on this point that W,
his right mind and still more any man ofintelIi
gence and moral discernment, in other respects
can be found to approve and sympathize with it
I[Applause.] I am sure ifsuch persons will bring
home to their minds, in any distinct conception
the real nature of the undertaking, they woul(
be themselves amazed that they had ever giver
it their sympathy. 1t appears from his owr
statements and those of his deDuded associates
of his biographer, of his wretched wife, that ths
unhappy man who has just paid the forfeit of bi,
life had for years meditated general insurreo-
ton in the Southern States that he thought the
time had now come to effect it; that the slaves
were ready to rise, and the non slaveholdine
whites to join them and both united were ready
to form new commonwealth, of which the con
stitution was organized and the officers chosen
With this wild, but thoroughly matured plan, hs
provides weapons for those on whose rising be
calculated at Harper's Ferry; he seizes the arse
nal, where there was supply of arms for 6
hundred thousand men, and he intended, if una
ble to maintain himself at once in the open coun
try, to retreat to the mountains, and from theil
Businesses harrsss, paralyze, and at length reyo-
lutlonize the South.
To talk of the pixies and rifles not being in
i +andod g.. otE,nsira nnrnoaas is simnlu ahsnrd