The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-05-04

operations SO that the guard could not see
them while at the work. We have cap
tured eight of them, and expect to get the
other two soon. JOSEPH H. SHULTz.
A Letter from b. j. Barbour, Esq.
To the Editor OF Enquirer and Examiner.
BARBoURsvILLE, April 18th, 1868.
When the card from your unknown CORES
pondent, Albemarle," first appeared, ask
ing me to define my political position, l
passed it to the credit of atoo jealous friend
ship-concluding that, as my opinions were
SO we'll known within the immediate circle
of my friends, and in all probability were
so little canvassed or considered beyond 1t,
there was no pressing necessity for OBJ
trnding them on the public. Since then,
however, l have noticed the mention OF my
name in connection with the first office IN
the State, and fearing that my silence might
be misapprehended, and construed into an
acouiescence in this suggestion, have de-
termined to avail myself of your courtesy
and kindness $50 delicately proffered) to
make the following statement.
II is well known to all who take any in
terest in my opinions that it was my fortune
to differ seriously with my southern breth-
rem on the subject Of secession. From the
first, rather by a dread instinct than through
any political sagacity, regarded the move
ment as suicidal and Furthermore, be-
lieved then, as now, that the cause Of con-
stitutional liberty, of civilization itself, was
bound up in the preservation Of the Union.
Thus believing, felt myself at liberty, con-
scientiously, to declare that, from my stand
point, and under what | regarded as a le-
Ultimate construction, | was able to take the
oath necessary to admit me to q seat in the
Federal Congress, to which | had been
elected by my fellow-citizens Of the seventh
district of Virginia. l gladly avail myself
of this opportunity to say that / desired to
make no separate terms for myself, and that
my whole energy would have been devoted
to the repeal of that oath, and of every un-
Just restriction upon the southern people.
I allowed myself to hope that the magma
nimity and liberality displayed by the two
great northern Generals would be warmly
seconded by Congress and the people, and
that the two sections (sections then no
longer), saddened and sobered by terri
BILE war, would come together in peace and
harmony-that their separation and aEena-
ton would be regarded as temporary mad
ness-and that, like our giant Mississippi,
divided for time by some envious island,
the two currents would speedily unite
again, and flow on in mingled might and
majesty forever.
In this hope and expectation have been
sadly mistaken. The example set them has
not been followed, and it turns out here, rs
| Macaulay says of the contest between Hol-
land and France, that whilst "the Generals
were making Peace, the Legislators were
making War" Practically and virtually,
we are not as near true and valid recon-
struction as when Lee and Johnston surren-
dered their swords. The Republican party
unwisely, indeed must say wickedly, have
rejected the noblest triumph ever vouch.
| safed and offered to man. One touch OF
kindness would have subdued the South
more effectually than all the armies they
can muster; but they failed, as other con-
ouerors have failed, to appreciate the grand
truth that "perfect love is absolute peace
and boundless power" and the result is that
they hold the ground on which they are en-
camped, and nothing more.
The picture as now presented to us is
sombre enough. Day by day the spirit of
the southern people sinks lower and lower,
until it verges on despair, and there is dan
ger that they will settle down into the me-
lancholy conviction that the world can no
more supply cement for broken Union
than for a broken heart. The production
of the most fertile portion Of the country
languishes people lack the energy
which springs alone from Hope-they are
irresolute and nerveless, weighed down by
a sense of impending calamity all the more
intolerable because it is so vague and indie
finite. This, however, is as nothing COM
pared with the effort to place the southern
States under negro committeeman outrage
so foul as to Justify us in denouncing it as
the master crime of the nineteenth century !;
and cannot understand how any southern
man could sympathize with party which
has, either through hate, fanaticism, or folly,
inaugurated scheme filled with certain
danger, and perhaps fraught with unutter-
able woe, to the two races, and ultimately
to the whole nation.
The dread experiment is upon lis, and
our best and only hope is that when the
mad career of Radicalism has met its To-
gical fate, and on Imperial master steps upon
the scene, he will separate these hostile
elements and remand the negro to his own
continent or to some home provided by the
nation. Justice to the white race and
mercy to the negro alike declare that this is
the only remedy which can prevent an
appalling catastrophe. To keep the two
races in juxtaposition, and on social and
political equality, is simply impossible. 1t
is not on account Of his color tL"tV we de-
clare association witk. the negro impossible
Int heca,s.sse 1t is the index Of an irrecon
cilable antagonism. Rome, England, Rus
sia, could free their slaves at one blow, fol
however debased, they were Of the same
race, and had the germ of congenial civil
cation but here it is impossible. The two
races are entirely distinct, and God has
sealed the inferior one to a separate civil
cation, and man cannot join together whom
God hath put asunder. The negroes them
selves, both in their speeches in the Con
vention, and in the hideous Constitution they
have put forth, display this consciousness
They eyince an unalterable suspicion Of thu
white race of the South, and acknowledge