Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1864-08-20
TIE sA1UrAroRY OF WILLIAMS REFERRED TO
N ruR AnnER

i IN A46 2HSNA'
Dear Reader: After three years SER
vice in the army, have returned to re-
sumo my post as editor of the Spirit.
The approaching presidential cam
paign, though less arduous than the cam
paign against the Rebels, is, to the full
est extent, as important The absolute
ruin of the country is as certain to follow
the election of Lincoln, as 1t is to follow
the independence ofthe Confederacy. A
divided country, bankrupted in eredi t
and in honor; constitution outraged and
contemned until the lowest official may
defy it with impunity; nation, or rath-
| or half a nation, despised and ridiculed
by the pettiest principalities of Europe,
a people groaning under great burdens of
taxes, are events already nearly consume
mated \by the imbecility or villainy of
Lincoln's administration. Far less than
another four years will see completed the
ruinous work now much more than half
done. The bones of thousands more,
better men than Lincoln, will be left to
bleach on bloody battlefelds; tens of
thousands more will be rendered helpless
for life; scores of thousands more of wild
ows and orphans will fill the land, and
our whole country become one great
house of mourning.
The consequences of the reelection of
Lincoln cannot be contemplated without
shudder. Rapidly the prices of the
necessaries of life are riseing beyond the
reach of the poor widows and orphans
and manned soldiers. Day by day huns
dreds, sometimes thousands, are added to
the long list of helpless men, and poor
widows and orphans. No matter where
YOU may live, reader, few steps from
your door will take you to the sorrow-
stricken homes of little orphans in whose
future is many hungry, suffering day.
If YOU meet a child you hardly dare to
ask for its father lest you be answered
with gush of tears, or a deep sob from
its little breaking heart
In the name of divided and almost
bankrupted country; in the name of two
hundred thousand wooden limbs and emp
ty sleeves; in the name of untold thous-
ands of heroic dead; in the name of the
orphans tears and the widows woe, has
not one election'of'' Lincoln costus enough!
Are sorrow and starvation and Wretched-
ness so sweet sight that we would com
plete the ruin of our country to multiply
them? Have we the eyes of ghouls that
we must have more hecatOmbs OF dead
upon which to feast them? Have we the
hearts of fends that we would double
the misery of our fellow beings in which
to reveR
Let every man with heart and a cons
science ask himself if he wants four more
of such disastrous years? Four more
years of outraged liberties? Four more
years of corruption and strife? -Four
more years of carnival for misery and
death?
He is blind indeed who cannot see abs
solute ruin broadly staring US in the face
and he is to be pitied or dispised who
does not see that with the reelection OF
Lincoln it will fall opon US with crush
ing, overwhelming force.
Like a vessel circling in the current of
the maelstrom, our country has, during
Lincoln's administration, been draw ing
nearer and nearer to the whirlpool of des
struction. As we approach the fatal
verge the circles become smaller, and our
speed more rapid. Knowing this, seeing
ing it, are we insane that we should set
quietly while the pilot tells obscene
stories and allow US to drift to destruc-
ton?
If we make no effort to save our coun~
try we deserve TO have none. Go TO work
then Democrats patriots, by every hon
orable means to rescue our solled and
torn constitution from the hands of Its
violators. There is hope for our country
if Lincoln is defeated, none without.
JERE WILLIAMS