New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-02-22
FROM FLASHING TON.
THE WISE FARCE AT RICHM0ND-THE
HELPER FARCE AT WASHINGTON.

HELPER FARCE Al NAohlNUION'
From Our Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Feb 20, 1860.
The Northern readers of The TRIBUNE Of this
morning, who peruse its Telegraph dispatch from
Richmond about "The Virginia Democratic State
Convention how that august body though unable
to express any presidential preferences, did form
Dsunion Conference of the Southern States-how
the oppendaBt Mass Meeting, composed mostly on
members of the State Convention, urged tao Legls-
ature to respond fayoraby to the request OF South
Carolina and Mississippi, to appoint Commissioners
TO such COnference-hOw one Gen. Starke, not OF
Bennington but of Vcksburg, told the Virginians
and the country, amid "great cheering, that if the
South was not protected by Federal authority, she
would seize the Federal property within her limits
and defend herself We say, the Northern readers
of The TRIBUNE may possibly suppose that such
announcements produce some sensation in city
which lies $50 miles nearer Richmond the seat of
these terrific proceedings than does New York, and
which, from the large number of leading Southern
men here, nah be supposed to reflect pretty accu-
rately the slaveholdng sentiment of the country
Nothing can be further from the fact All this
Richmond ebuion ia regarded here as sheer gas
coDade-mere Presidential predetermined FANS got
up and let off by the partizans of Wise, as means
of keeping alive the fires be kindled at Harpers
Ferry, and by the light of which he hopes to run
away with the thirty Delegates from Virginia to
Charleston The tragic airs put on by this conclaye
of noisy dsputants within doors, and these Wanting
braggarts who made night hide0us with their ye5
around Stark lodgings, are esteemed by all sensible
people at the Federal capital as the brOadest srce
The whole affair in laughed ut as the final action in
the long series of absurd tricks which the Ex-
GubernatOrial Pantsloon has been playing of to
obtain the PresideEtial nOmirstOn-sNch as TIE
absurd Dounely letter, the fussy military display 1t
Charlestown, the coBgratuatOrJ address to the
recusant saT-bOnes ct cetera.
And it may not be am.ss to add, shat as IL is with
this Richmond farce, so has it turned out with the
more IMPOSING but never, at any moment, more
serious Performance in the House OF Representa-
tves during the protracted contest sor Speaker.
The occupant Of its chair is Republicans
" Black Republican, OF tire twenty Ghairme1of
Standing Committees who we're members OF the
last II oase eighteen are indOrseTs oil the infamous
Helper book" even he notorious John 9hermah"
himself being placed at the head n the leacmg Conn
mittee. And on these eighteen Committees, pre-
sided over by these Helper indOrsers, we find serv
ing with conimendabe doclity, Mr. John ID Clark,
the mover of the celebrated resolution which
no long aCitated COnnress--he himself asking
70 be placed on Committee whose Chair
nan is one of the very men whom that
resolution condemned as anft to be Speaker and
Dir. Extra Billy SHlnn, shO SITS 4uiotl9 anu 10
,pectfully upon the same Committee, osd Mr.. Dur-
on Craige who lives at Salisbury, NOr5h Carolina
where Helper once dwelt, and whom Helper Two |
years ago assaulted in the Capitol, fcr sandermg |
lin, as he ALLEGED, and Mr.. Eoteler, who represents
he Harper's Ferry district, and Mr.. Houston, who |
old the country how disgraceful it would BE to have
IN indorser of Helper in the chair, ana, for we |
cannot dwell upon individual names, such'yitupera-
tive denouncers of " Helperism" as Messr@ Lamar,
Davis Pugh Bonham, Curry, Cobb, Mckee, Craw-
Tord Hindman, and Others of like kith and kin, are
in the same category. And these things 8Ze done,
though not without q few twinges OF apprehension
among timd men as to the result, when, lc' in the
twnkling of an eye the stormy surges iasned ofury
by eight weeks of noise and threats gascOnade and
denuneations subside into dead calm, which as one
looks upon the dull routine of daily proceedngsin the
House, partakes, from the venerable Spetser all
the way down to the smallest page, more 81 the
ridiculous than the sublime. Never before did
so labor 70 bring forth so diminutive
quadruped- For two months the country, n inc
estimation of all the ancient DANES OF both sexes
from Maine TO Texas, hangs on the verge OF rum
By reason of the dreadful threatenDgs and slangh-
Ter breathed out by about one hundred noisy fellows
in the House of Representatives. Well; tho very |
thing is finally accomplished, in substance, which
they vowed should be promptly followed by flaSl
breaking up OF the COnfederacy. And in about
the space cfthree days thereafter, the House ceases
ts lion like roar DOTS its proper skn, prOtrudes the
familiar ears and brays as has been ats wont any
time these ten years past.
Will sensible peoole never learntO place proper
value upon the mock heroics Of these politral