Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1868-03-17
THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION.

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The political jail4birds who have been
fattening at the capitol of Virginia for the
past three months, still continue to plumber
the people of that State. The Richmond En-
quirer says, the last dollar of the hundred
thousand appropriated for their use has been
expended by these hungry cormorants and
vultures. Nearly the whole of this sum was
paid into the treasury by the very men against
whose rights, liberties and shattered fortunes
the needy adventures are plotting day and
night. Never before were the pages of history
blackened by more cruel illustration of the
truth of the dread maxim "vae victis," than
is presented in this spectacle of band of
alier mercenaries and liberated slaves deyour-
ing the substance of the very people whom
they propose to disfranchise and degrade
The Grand Inquisitor of the Most Holy In
QUESTION never conceived of such refinement
of cruelty as this, neither did Hun, Goth,
Vandal nor Tartar ever subject conquered
people to such outrages as to lay waste their
lands and cities and liberate their slaves, and
then force an impoverished people to pay
those very slaves and their allies for forging
chains with which they were to be bound.
One hundred thousand dollars wruRg by
tax-gatherers from Yirginians, many of whom
are strangers to the comforts of good food and
clothing, have been paid as the wages of
creatures who, day after day, denounce,
calumniate and seek to outrage those whose
money they have taken, and no one can pre-
dict how long this spoliaton of the tax. payers
of the State is to continue. New England
squatters, who were elected to this "Conven-
ton" by the votes Of negroes, and who entered
the capitol with no other property than
carpet bag full of old clothes, have each re-
ceived thousand dollars for villifying and
defaming the white men of the State. Me-
groes, with no more conception of the solemn
responsibilities resting upon the shoulders of
law makers than the distinguished African
who was roasted in Barnum's Museum the
other night, have each pocketed the same
amount for helping the aforesaid hungry
rpet-baggers to war upon the property
holders of the State.
And while what they have done demon>
strates that their object is the disfranchise-
ment of the white race, the work which they
propose doing is designed to Cypress the pro-
scribed race with taxes which they cannot
pay, and which will press so heavily that an
attempt to collect them will inevitably lead
to civil war. The whites are to be taxed to
educate the children of black paupers and
thieves. a legion Of paid officials are to de-
YOUR the little which war has spared, and a
host Of salaried county judges, superinten-
dents of schools, &c, are to take the places
Of those unpaid officials whose honest and
faithful performance of their duties have for
nearly century been the pride of Virginia.
And having already taken from the people
one hundred thousand dollars, these impla-
cable enemies of the white man will soon mi
tiate measures for wringing additional mon
cy from their intended victims, in order that
they may get eight dollars a day for donoun-
cling, for some months yet the men whom
they are taxing These monstrous and ini-
uuitOus measures are but the shadows which
coming horrors. calamities and outrages cast
before them, and which will render Virginia
unfit for the occupation Of decent white men
if the work of this "Convention" shall be
approved at the polls.