Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1860-11-16
kS4O and 1860.

YET twenty years n"'o i4o"i niucc tudb eId
Of humbug. log cabin, hard cider and gold
spoons. Twenty years is great period in
the life of a man, and whole generation
have grown up who have no recollection of
the days of ''Tippecanoe and Tyler too"
It is difficult to realize the fact that 1910.
with all its memories, has faded back so tar
into the history Of the past. and that we now
stand as far from that era as we did in 1910
from the date Of the Missouri Compromise
Of 1920; yet, when we look around US, we
see the indications Of the tremendous rava-
ges which Time has made, and the momen-
tous changes which be has wrought.
Nearly all the statesmen of 1840-those
who were connected with the Administers
ton at that time--are in their graves, or
have long ceased participating in public af~
fairs. OF Mr. Van Buren's Cabinet of 1910.
John Forsyth, Secretary Of State; Levi Wood
bury, Secretary Of the Treasury; Mahlon
Dickinson, Secretary of the Navy; John M
Niles, Post Master General; Benjamin +.
Butler, Attorney General; Joel R Poinsett,
Secretary of War, are all dead. There is
not man in the United States Senate who
was there in 1910. Nearly all of the prom
inent Senators are dead, such as Clay, Web
ster, Calhoun, Silas Wright, Colonel Ben
ton, Berrien, Preston, Poindexter, and
Choate.
In the House Of Representatives, save
Thos. Corwin, we look in vain for any of
the members of 1910. General jackson,
and J. Quincy Adams, venerable Ex- Pres
idents were then on the stage of action and
exercising great influence upon public af-
fairs. Two of the chiefs Of political strife
in 1910, Mr.. Van Buren, and John Tyler,
still live, in extreme old age, but long ago
ceasing to take part ia the strifes of the
times. En- other respects what mighty
changes have these two brief decades that
separate us from 1910 witnessed! What a
difference between the United States of 1910
and the United States of 1860! Not a mile
of telegraph wire then in all her borders;
few railroads completed scarcely any IN
the West; stages and steamboats, the gen
eral methods of travelling; the Daguerrean
art, invented in 1889, hardly known in
1910; seventeen millions of people in the u
nited States then, nearly double, or thirty
two millions of people, now; California, Or
Logon and our Pacific coast now the seat of
1ourishing members of the American u
MON, as little known to the people almost
as the centre of Africa is now gold scarce
and hard to be obtained, now it comes in al
most at the rate of million dollars week
from California. When we looked to Eu-
rope, we beheld Nicholas Of Russia, Louis
Philippe in France, the Duke of Yelling
ton in England, Metternich in Austria, as
the great representative men of that CONT
nent They have all gone.
The youthful Queen Of Great Britain then
Just married-now grandmother! Hard
ly steamer upon the ocean, and fifteen or
sixteen days considered quick passage to
Europe. The vast Continent Of Australia
has been lifted up from the mists Of the
Southern Ocean, which had obscured it
from the light of civilization, and become a
great member of the family Of nations, with
an illimitable future before it. The twenty
years past have indeed been active ones in
the history Of the world, and will keep the
pen Of the future historian busy TO record
their momentous events. The twenty years
from 1870 to 1910 were comparatively qui-
Its rest, and recovering from the tremen-
dous shocks and unparalleled exertons of the
wars Of Napoleon and the French Revolu-
ton of 1849 What a retrospect flashes
upon, our memory as We TOOK back toward
1910! The annexation of Texas; the war
With Mexico; the conquest of California; the
French Revolution. Or rather the European
Revolutions in 1913; the downfall of Louis
Philippe and the rise Of Napoleon ILL.,. the
coup d'etat; the alliance Of France and Enc
land against Russia; the Crimean War, the
struggled before Sebastopo-a siege which
has no parallel in modern times-the mutiny
IN India; the war Of France with Austria,
and the appearance again of the French ca
gles upon the Italian plains, from which
bhevy mad been so long banished.
At home the rise and progress Of the Alb
clifton agitation, which has been marching
steadily to the overthrow Of our Union, and
the destruction of our national prosperity,
has been one of the Leading features of the
times. We saw it's germs in 1910, when
Blrney as an Abolition candidate for Pres
ident, received but seven thousand votes ba
the United States. Then it was neglected
and despised. Little or nothing was said
about slavery in 1910 outside of the small
band Of Rirney fanatics. Fog cabins, hard
cider, coon skins and gold spoons, inter
mixed with something about the currency
and hard times, were then the great themes
Of discussion and political dispute. Trivial,
and contemplate as was the eectioneering
trash and slang of 1910, how infinitely pref
cradle to the pestiferous issues which have
been made between the North and South in
1860! What patriot would not like to, see
now national politician campaign conducted
without the appearance of the inevitable ne.
gro Who would not rejoice to see the
harmony and fraternal feeling which CHAR
acterzed the intercourse of tie States in
1910 again restored Politics were then
having their adherents in every
State Of the tJnion-not as now divided on
geographical lines From 1910 to 1860
we have had continual and unnecessary
wrangle in she United States upon this sla-
very question. The strands of our Union
have been frittering away With q, slow and
gradual process. Tt has Implanted the Bit !
terest feeling of sectional hate between
brethren between States Of the same u
MON. No bondman has been freed, no ben
L..