Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1861-01-18
To the People of Augusta.

candidate for your suffrages, and you have
never refused to honor me with your gen
erous confidence. At the instance of many
friends l come before you again to ask your
support for far more important public trust
than have ever aspired to before. In the
alarming perlls that surround us, the Leg
islature has, think wisely, invoked the
sovereign power of the people to decree what
is needful for the protection, defence and
preservation of their honor and their rights
as Virglnians, and their liberties as Ameri-
can citizens: You, the people Of Augusta,
the first and leading county in general in
tellIgence, and material wealth. of our glori-
Gus old Commonwealth, are entitled to three
delegates in the Convention which has been
called. Your voice, at all times influential
IN the councils Of the State, will now, from
your known conservatism and your tradi-
tlonal devotion to equal rights and constitu-
tional liberty, be most potential in the de-
alterations Of the Convention if it is fairly
and truly and boldly expressed through
your representatives:
| Ii this was an election to an ordinary
legislative assembly of the State, | might
be content to submit the question of my
election to you, upon the general knowledge
you possess OF my character and past politi-
cal views. But the interests at stake are
too vast, the questions to be decided are too
fearfully solemn in their consequences to
you and your posterity, to be entrusted to
any man whose views in regard to them are
not fairly and frankly stated to, and fully
understood by you before the election. This
is no time to vote for man because he is
your personal friend, or because he has been
a Wing or Democrat. We are in the
midst Of q Reyolnt son-the Union has been
sunderea--that glorious Union devised by
the wisest. the bast, the purest men who
ever founded an empire. Civil war is i'm
pending over us, our very liberties, so dear
to every American and purchased at such
an inestimable price of suffering. of treasure
and Of blood, are threatened with destruc-
ton Parties and politicians alsehood,
infdelity and fanaticism in pub
lie morals, and the ravng madness of sec
tional hate, originated in the pulpits of the
North, fostered in their schools, organized
upon their hastings, and expounded through
the ballot box, have brought the country to
the verge of ruin. And now parties and
politicians cannot save US. | scorn the man
who in an hour like this would permit his
former party relations to influence his action.
therefore come before you in my character
as a citizen alone, and expect no mans vote
who does not endorse my opinions upon the
great issue that is forced upon us.
[ have ever been devoted to the Ameri
can Union under the Constitution Of the
United States. To that Union we owe all
our national greatness, and under the Con-
stitution fairly administered in the spirit of
national fraternity and individual and State
equality which it was designed TO secure. a
continent might have bowed in harmonious
and reverent submission to its hene6cent
supremacy. But the Union has been de-
stroyed by the withdrawal Of several States,
and the Constitution has been trampled I'M
der foot by majority Of those which remain
Virginia. thank God, has lived up to all her
obligations under the Constitution. She has
failed in no duty to the nation and has
made no aggressions upon any of her sisters
in the Confederaey. Wrong and outrage
have been perpetrated upon her over and
over again, but with the forbearance and
dignity becoming great, magnanimous
and just people, she has sought by earnest
remonstranco a redress Of her grievances,
and has relied upon time and returning
sense of justice on the part Of some of her
sisters for exemption from repetition of
these wrongs. But all these just expecta
tons have been disappointed, and instead
of the peaceful and friendly relations she
has SO sedulously cultivated being establish
ed, we this day see her and her institutions
condemned ard despised by an unprincipled
Northern majority Of wild politico-religious
fanatics, whose undisguised purpose it is to
destroy all her future prosperity and great
ness, by first subjugating her and the other
slave States to the uncontrolled dominion
and power of the North. and finally under
the forms of the Constitution to effect the
abolition of slavery and re-enact here the
dark drama Of St. Domingo. This North
ern majority denies the equality Of the States
under the Constitution as they interpret it.
They disregard its binding force upon them
in one ofits planest provisions. They con-
slider themselves commissioned by the Al
mighty to release the negro race from bond
age and make them the equals of white men,
though to accomplish this purpose it may
be necessary to put arms in their hands and
incite them to insurrection and the inds-
criminate murder of our wives aud children.
Alarmed at these threatened and perhaps
not remote dangers, several of the South
ern States have withdrawn from the Union.
I think they have acted hastily and wrong
Of that, however, it was their right to Judge
and act for themselves They have gone,
and we are left now in The power and at the
mercy of this party Of the North, who are
still with us in the Union. IF we remain
passive, I see no prospect of future peace or
safety on any other condition than that of
absolute submission to tyrannical majori-
ty of a hostile section. Already they threat
en- the subjugation Of the seeding States
by fire and sword, and they expect US Of the
border States to stand by with folded arms
and see it done, or help them to do it
They admit that the Union has been par~
tally dissolved, and they propose to recon
struct it at the mouth Of the cannon and point
of the baycnet. too, say it is dissolved
and propose that it be Reconstructed in the
manner of the olden time--if recon struc-
ton be yet eossiAls. England in l77e,
originated this Back Republican idea OF
reconstruction in her maternal effort to WIN