Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1868-03-10
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NUMBER XVII.
and it was because we were minority that we
left the United States Congress. 49,

and it was because we were minority that we
left the United States Congress.
But the party in possession ofthe government
has demanded, and now demands, us that we
shall become members of the Republican party
and treats us as contumacious because we cannot
do so. We at the South care nothing for the
Northern Democratic party; but we cannot be-
come members ofthe Republican party. because
1t is essentially sectional and anti Southern
party. We can submit to the United States
government, but we cannot qtn- South ourselves
and pretend to welcome ideas which, manufact-
ured expressly for the Northern market, are aim
ed against us and intended to subjugate our souls
as well as our bodies,
1t is because the South protests land will ever
protest. against this attempt to destroy our self
respect and our liberty of opinion, that negro
suffrage has been put upon us. 1t is an effort
to WELD the South through the negroes. 1t is
not intended for the benefit of the negro: it is
intended to control the vote of the South-to
aggrandize party. The white people of the
South have been sacrificed by one of the most
pltliess DEGREES that Power ever promulged "a
gainst Weakness. Such an effort may result
In the STILL dead torpor of Despotism but if
you would have afree, living people, you must
have full play for diversity of sentiment and o.
pinion.
| desire barely to touch one other point in
these desultory remarks, and shall conclude.
Much has been said and quietly assumed on
that side of the Convention about the wrong
done by the white people of the South to the
African race, IN holding them in slavery. | was
| never an admirer of the institution of slavery
L never sought to expand it, and never ceased to
deplore it; and l am, therefore, qualified to
speak on this subject. When one of the colored
members of this body rises and complains about
his race having been stolen from Africa and
brought over to this country and held for two
hundred years in slavery. it is proper to remind
him that, IT there were lnSeparable evils con-
nected with the institution of African slavery,
the compensating benefits to the negro were
greatly in excess of the evils which attended it.
In the first place, it you were stolen away from
your native shores, you were stolen and brought
here by your New England friends on that side
of the house against the renaonstrances of the
people of Virginia. The theft lies at their doors,
and not at ours. In the second place, you were
slaves In your native land, naked servile race,
feeding on tripe and worshipping toads and SER
pents-a condition which your cousins In the
parent country have not improved on since your
departure. In the third place, when we receiv-
ed you here we found you thus naked and we
clothed you we found you hungry and we fed
you; we found you savages and we developed
you into Baynes and Hodgeses and Nortons;
we found you pagans and we made you Chris
tians. You have nothing to plain ofon this
score. No people ever advanced more in two
hundred years than you, with all of your i'm.
agined wrongs, did in this country-an import
ant fact, considering that tbelnegroes in. Africa
have been nothing but savages for three thou
sand years, and hold out no promise of ever be-
ing anything else. If you are not pleased. you
have no gratitude; and, if you continue dissat-
isfied, you had better return to the old country
might, sir, go on; for the subject is full of
suggestions; but | will not weary the Conven-
tlon My purpose is only, as the representa-
tive OF three OF the great counties Of Virginia,
to lodge my protest against what know is al
ready predetermined, and will not be modified
by appeal or by argument.
I'll have not said enough, I have said too
much. The members on this side are only help
less spectators of the proceedings here. We
come here with no power to save, and only to
bury the remains of Virginia. We are only
watchers in this chamber of death-sitting be-
side the pale and breathless corpse which you
insult by your jibes and empirical experiments
to galvanize and revive. You cannot restore
the hneaments Of life, nor wake into energy
these dead and torpid pulses There are no
genial influences, in this hour of darkness, to
stir this dull, insensate sleeper. When these
clouds pass away, and these pestilential vapors
are dismissed and the life giving sun shall warm
with his beams the chill and wintry earth-then,
and not till then shall Virginia, like some seed,
shed these yestments of decay; touched by the
hand of resurrection. burst, like some Lazarus,
the cerements of the tomb, and move again
amid the busy scenes of life. 9 s4s
WHAT IS IMPEACHMENT ?-Many persons
seem to cenfound Impeachment with ''coh.
viction. - impeachment is equivalent-no-
thing more, nothing less Read what the Con-
stitution of the United States says:u
Article |. Section 2. The House of Repre-
sentatives shall choose their speaker and other
officers, and shall haze the sole poaoer Of impeach
ment." iI l@ -- Ef l-a sEog4lEsf
So, then, as the House has completed its ac-
tion the impeachment of the President is COM
plete.. The next thing will be his trial, and
then his acquittal or conviction.
1t is said that the effect of the Senate resolv-
ing itself into high court of impeachment,
will be to suspend all other business, and ar
rest the career of passionate and vindictive legf
islation which has disgraced the statue-book O.
the country. Here at least is some compensa-
ton for proceeding otherwise fraught with
unmixed calamity and discredit to the nation
impeachment is to stop the daily and weekly
tinkerlng of the reconstruction laws, and ere
long may itself be impeached as an ''obstruc-
l. L n