The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-10-17
VIRGINIA.

mOMd-Ho nuVlseb HouuR men, To Be
come Farmers and DO Their Own
Labor,
WASHINGTON, October l6. - The Horlicul-
tural and Pathological Society of Vir-
ginia was opened tonight in Richmond.
General Wise delivered the address; He COM
menced by saying that "never in the history
of nations has revolution been more sudden,
shocking, and severing ints effects than the late
conflict of State and Federal sovereignties in
the United States, in respect to all our relations,
political, social, and economical.
"The Constitution offederation has been broken
and set at naught, its compacts have been con-
solid0ted in the irresponsible and unchecked
power of some, only through most of Its units,
and the other State constituencies or units in
the minority have been metamOrphosed into
fractions or fragments of conquered provinces,
In which the supremacy of civil law, civil rights,
and civil jurisdiction has been dethrOned Oy
military domination. The result is that the
foundations of the whole have been so shaken
and shattered that no repairs only of the fabric
can make 1t firm and stable again; but 1t must
be entirely rebuilt anew, from cornerstone TO
dome. The Union as 1t was does not exist and
States as they we're have been demolished
After describing the mode in which the Union
was formed, he sad:-
"This common Government was so plural in
fact that IL had no name in the singular num-
Der. Its very name is plural of States-the
United Statesmen plural of people in the sense
of population. There is Maine man. New
Yorker Vrginian, q Kentuckian, a North or
South Carolinian, but even the great eXpounder
himself was never so immodest as to call him
self a United States man. He was Massachu-
sets man, son OF the elder sister of Virginia,
which hailed her Cheerily in the night of the
revolution or rebellion against George the Third,
by the grace of Great King OF Britain, when Vir-
gina and Massachusetts, were States, in the eXer-
else of the rights of the war, the highest act of
sovereignty, before the United States even
were.
He then spoke of the manner in which Sar-
geant S. Prentiss made the two words ''felow
citizens" embrace and express the full grandeur
and greatness of our country, and inspire the
holy sentiment to preserve, guard, perpetuate,
and defend 1t, and said:--
"Alasl we are no longer fellow-citizens, no
longer citizens. Oar own, our native land, its
civil liberty has departed; its Governments,
State and Federal, have been dissolved and
changed. There are no longer any guarantees
of the rights of the one or checks upon the
powers of the other, and its soil has
been trampled in mire and filth by the in
vasion of a fratricidsl civil war. Where
now is separate State IDENTIFY Where now
internal sovereigntyP Where now equal dig
nifty Where now selt-protecting power or the
@gis of constitutional law? Where now sepa-
rate State independence? The wrecks of powers
and of rights point to Congress. Congress has
stationed commandants over districts numbered
by proclamation. They have ordered the civil
to be subordinate and obedient to the military
authority. The conventional as we'll as the
municipal powers and capacities OF State peo-
pies have been ignored and enacted and pro-
claimed out of existence. The Executive
judiciary. The benches of justice are suspended
Dy epauleJteQ commissions, VINO neeQ nor
sherifs nor sergeants, nor marshals, nor posse
Conln1itdtuS-who drill to order, who substitute
CTierssand tipstaves with dru n aud fife, who
serve no civil process bat note the minute of
the prOceS UerbdL add are armed with gloves of
steel to do martial execution. The free white
people who were masters but yesterday, are
humbled to become the political slaves OF the
black freedmen OF to-day. The American slaves
of yesterday, the freedmen, not treemen, OF to.
day, are exalted TO become the political olack
masters of the white freemen OF yesterday
What change in q single day 1t was, rather,
| a night of the blackness of darkness OF surren'
| der. IA surrender not ofthe black mans chains
| so much as of the white mans natural rights OF
| race and civil rights of citizenship, 1t was
| change not from slavery to liberty OF the one
| race, but change of black slaves into black
masters, change of white masters into white
| slaves. Not change of the Ethiopians color
and nature into white, nor change OF the
| Caucasian color and nature into black; not o
| change of the races but a change reversing the
relative conditions of the two races and merging
| the rights and relations of both in an I'M
| limited, unchecked, underlined despotlsm. There
| is no more fellowship in citizenship. The
| vase OF Onion is broken, not cracked merely. 1t
| is broken to pieces through and throughout
from tip to base If held together, 1T is no longer
| in amlty and peace, and by compact or agree
/ ment, or by ratification. 1t is now pinned by
| bayonets, bound by brute force, cemented, not
| by fraternal affection, not by common love of
| country, not by comradeship OF common fate or
| fortune or cause or sacrifice, or glory or suffer-
| ing, OF triumph, but by an amalgam Of the co
| agulated blood of enemies in war, not yet, in
peace, friends. This revolution has wrought
| thorough and fundamental changes in our social
| system and our economy in every branch OF
business, particularly that of the culture of the
| land. The lands are all that are left us. They
are the only fountains OF our life, the only
| sources OF our supplies. The only earnest OF
| our renovation is the earth we live on, and the
lands are left desolate and waste. This land, of
every land the PRIDE Is bereft of its verdure, its
blossom, al its bloom its fruits and its flowers,
| Of everything except its ancient renown, its
| late glory in arms and its present honor and
| from the fields, and are now the pupils of poll
| tics, the dupes OF tanaticism 'honey-tuggled
by the fatal caGesses Of co-operatiCnists and are
| but too certain TO be the demoraliZed victims of
| the demagogues, and whisky Of elections, and
/ to be decimated by the diseases OF the now
| licensed vices of their race-laZiness and lust.
| These changes demand an absolute change in
farming system. This requires a new mode of
| culture, new implements, new crops, more
| various, on a smaller scale, more contracted and
| concentrated, requiring more skill, more care
| and yielding the most profit on the smallest
| space. Virginians, II they would not be driven
| out from their own inheritance, should them
selves do this work OF farming for themselves
| They must not call on Hercules, nor freedmen
| nor German, nor SWede, nor immigrants from
| any clime."
After speaking of the favorable geographical
| position of the State her soil, climate, mineral
| and other resources, he advised the landholders
of the State to give every encOurag ment to our
own white labor, and the young men of the
| State to apply themselves to the study of agri-
| culture as science if they would save the real
estate of their fathers, and keep sacred the
| altars of their own brthpaces and homes,
| 1t is far more honorable to do this, he said,
than to skulk into professions by the back door,