Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1867-09-24
The Situation,

$500 =
From an article Of the Enquirer and E1an,i-
ner, under the above caption, we extract the
following:
1.-THE purpose of the Radicals is to put the
Southern States under negro control. The pro-
scription of whites, military rule, and universal
negro suffrage, are the expedients. The scheme.
is now in process of execution. If successful,
it envelopes the South in the blackness of night.
1t puts the government in the hands of utterly
incapable persons, led by depraved mercenaries.
1t puts the power of taxation in the hands Of
paupers, who would thus have the means of
confscating, for their own advantage, the prop
erty of the people under the forms of law. In
short, vice, ignorance, and rapacity, infiamed
by the animosities of race and caste, would be
enthroned while intelligence and virtue would
be doomed to retirement and persecution, and
industry and property to spollation.
Some of our people have been proposing to
cooperate in establishing the domination that
is thus to destroy us. This, which would in
the best view be gratuitous and monstrous, is
under the actual facts of the case utterly as
touuding If the registration rolls revealed an
irresistible majority for those on whom the
Radicals rely, cooperation would be idle.-
But when the figures which have been publish
ed in this paper, disclose the contrary when it
is abundanty manifest that it is only necessary
for the assaied class to stand together, in order
to secure the control of the State; the policy
which would, by cooperation, transfer power
to the minority, and infict the precise evil
which it should be special and absorbing anx-
iety to avert,-it is nothing short ofinsane !
1t is impossible to comprehend it, as the DELHI
crate conviction of a balanced intellect and
straightforward purpose.
I'VE desire to say to the New York Herald,
that while the people of the South, in submis
sion to superior force, are compelled to obey,
and do obey, the violent and unconstitutional
DEGREES Of which they are the victims, yet they
do not approve them, do not endorse them, and
look forward not with hope, but with terror, to
their consummation in the reconstruction
which the Radicals contemplate We believe
that such reconstruction will be the gigantic
horror which the Herald describes. We believe
it is the duty of every good citizen, and fevery
selfish citizen, in whatever section of the country
he may reside, to interpose to avert evils in
which, though unequaly all will share. Drag
ged along to our fate by power we may not
dispute, like helpless vessel towed by an in
sane pilot to Niagara fatal plunge,-we hail
with Joy the recognition of our peril by the
Herald and its co adjutors, and the hope of re-
lief which it inspires Let them not relax their
efforts nor soften their cries, through any rep
reservations made by any here, that the people
of the South are stupidity insensible to the APP
preaching terrors, and even desire settlement
on that basis, as preferable to the present I'M
rest
1--WE appeal to our people to support this ef-
fort, to avert the doom predestined for us by
the Radicals To 'co-operationists' we would
say, here is cooperation that is wise and le-
ultimate and honorable. Let us not be insen-
sibe to these exhibitions of interest in our un-
happy condition. and of desire to rescue us
from some Of its chief caamities. Let us not
discourage them by servilely hugging our un-
constitutional, intolerable, ruinous chains, in
the eyes of the world, and expressing impatient
pinings for the day when, under the name of
reconstruction, they are to be forever riveted !
Let us rather implore the relief of which the
hope is excited by earnestly, anxiously, per-
sistently testfying to its vital and indispensable
necessity, and to our full sense of the horrors
which otherwise impend!'
SoalE time since the office Of the Eagle news
paper at Camden, Arkansas, was despoiled by
party of United States soldiers led on by Ma
ior Neil Col. Gilbert, who commanded that
sub-district, wrote General Ord letter in which
he said that the censure of the press directed
against the servants of the people may be en-
dured, but General Ord's and Major NeiPs
forces were detailed to enable these servants to
perform their duties and they (these forces)
were not the servants of the people of Arkan-
sas but rather their masters, and he (Gilbert)
felt it to be great piece ofimpudence for news
papers in the State to commept on Neil under
any circumstances whatever.
General Ord, in reply, says: s'Your letter
Of the 18th instant in which you attempt to
justify an act of a party of soldiers, who misled
by an officer, forcibly entered citizens house
and destroyed his property, is received. You
will please explain why this act was not prevent
ed by you as post commander, and if the re-
quirement of the thirty second article of war
has been complied with. Your assertion that
General Neil's forces are mot the servants of
the people Of Arkansas but rather their mas,
tiers, is unjust both to the people and General
Nell and unfounded in the laws which are for
the benefit of the people. Tie assumption that
a party of soldiers can at their option forcibly
destroy citizens property, and commit a gross
violation of the public peace, would not be toll
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