Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1868-04-28
NUMBER XXXIV.

ment that can animate man to exertion, calls
upon the white people of Virginia to repudiate
and resist such unparalleled oppression.
Every Northern State which has voted on the
subject since the close of the war has rejected
negro suffrage. Ohio, on direct issue, no later
| than last fall, did so by majority exceeding
fifty thousand. Kansas, Minnesota and Con-
necticut had previously done the same thing
The late Constitutional Convention of New
| York deliberately recoiled from deciding the
question. And Michigan, hitherto so over
| whelmingly Republican, has just voted down
her new constitution by majority of thirty
thousand, because it admitted the negro to the
polls The census shows that there were only
some $4,000 negroes in Ohio in 1860. There
could have been only about 1000 negro voters
IN that State had they been enfranchised this
IN community where the white vote is nearly
5OO,OOO) an inappreciable influence. In Michi-
gan, there are only about 500 male negroes
twenty-one years of age. The white voters
number more than 165, ,000 And yet this State,
where Republican Governor was elected in
1866 BY majority of 29s93S, refuses by some
10000 majority to let 500 negroes vote.
The proposition in Virginia is to let 100000
vote, to make them all eligible to office, to give
them majority OF twenty one on joint ballot in
the Legislature, to give them the local control
In the counties and towns, to exclude a large
number OF the whites from the polls, to render
nine hundred and ninety-nin white men in
every thousand ineligible to the Legislature, or
any State or county office, and to lay the taxes
ut may be so stately exclusively on the whites?
Is 1t necessary to say more? Can injustice take
any grosser shape than that? Was ever people
summoned to resistance by so peremptory
call?
1t is difficult to realize the situation which we
have reached in the South. The mind is stupe-
lied at the initiation of negro domination. 1t
a waking nightmare, whose horrible shadow
cannot be pierced by the struggling faculties
spell that neither the senses nor the reason can
dissolve. The only escape from such fact is
that which the stout and the resolute always
discover from the storms and floods of an un-
propitious fortune. Resolved to swim, thew
breast the tempestuous waves with heroic hearts
and slnewy arms unterrifed and undiscouraged.
confident, that, if but true to themselves, thew
were not born to be drowned. In such spirit.
should the white people of Virginia buffet with
the rude surges that break over them in this
moment of adversely in such spirit should
they beat down the heaving bosom of the dark
food in which they struggle; in such a spirit
should they wrestle with the swift and swollen
current OF this revolutionary period, which has
submerged all the ancient landmarks, has SUBJ
verted the foundations of the Federal Govern
ment, has swept away the sentiment of constitu-
tional liberty at the North and is now raging
like bowling waste of waters over the lately
fair and lovely vistas of the South.
Charles Z. Duncan, of Scott
Adolphus w. Harris, of Nelson.
j. w. Broadus, of Amherst
]. G. Southall, of Albemarle
J. M. French, of Bland
Joseph A. Waddell, of Augusta.
Powell Harrison, of Augusta.
Hugh I'll. Lee of Roanoke
William Mclaughlin, of Rockbridge.
Lewis Llnkenhoker, of Botetourt
Joseph L. Campbell, of Washington
Eustace Gibson, of Giles
j. G. Gibson, of fRappahannock.
n. Berkeley, of Loudoun.
Fred. @. S. Hunter, of King George.
G. r. Cowan, of Russell.
NJ +. Robertson, of Franklin.
James Gibboney, of Wythe.
j. II. Thompson, OF Smyth.
George Il. Plaster, of Loudoun.
John L. Marye, Jr.. Of Spottsylvania.
r. Taylor Scott, of Fauquier
B. f. Lewis, of Prince William.
Joseph Mayse, of Bath.
Moses Walton, of Shenandoah.
Norval Wilson, of Frederick
John j. Gravatt, Of Caroline.
George W. Rust, of Page
j. Mex. Kennerly
Without endorsing all of the views presented
in the foregoing address, fully concur in the
conclusion arrived at that the constitution to
be submitted to the people of Virginia for their
ratification or rejection will not secure the ends
Of good government and ought to be rejected.
VIM i. OWEN.