Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1868-05-12

WOrthleSt and nODleSG III human nature, ana al
that the loftiest and most exacting patriotism
can demand. hope. also, to carry with me
some gentle and sustaining recollection of those
personal friendships and attachments which
bind me, as with ''hooks of STEEL" to so many
of the people of our Commonwealth, and which,
whatever the attractiveness of ambition or the
advantage of wealth, constitute at last the only
real charm and solace of this mortal life.
| There is but one political issue before the
people of Virginia at the present time, and
that is the question of the adoption or rejection
of the proposed constitution-an odious and in
famous contrivance, as it seems to me, for the
| suppression of intelligence, responsibility and
virtue in the administration of our State affairs
! and the substitution of the grossest ignorance
and the most shameless depravity in their
| ing white man in the Commonwealth will hes
itate moment to vote for the rejection of an
instrument, the object of which is the wanton
political and social degradation Of his race and
the ultimate destruction of every vestige OF lib.
erty and propriety it now enjoys. With locked
hearts and hands, then, let the people OF Vir-
ginia march to the polls on the I'd day Of June
next, and bury this loathsome spawn of Radi-
calism so deep that no resurrecting power can
ever reach it.
1t is a fact, gentlemen, susceptible of the
easiest demonstration that universal negro suf
frage in these Southern States necessarily and
inevitably implies (for some years at least) un
restricted and absolute negro supremacy. And
against policy so unjust, SO despotic, so ini-
quitous and so fraught with the gravest and
most imminent danger to our liberty, our prop
erty, our lives and our very existence as peo-
pie, we should protest and struggle, day in and
day out, with all the might, energy, and en-
thusiasm of our natures Nor should we relax
our efforts for a single moment until this great
and hagrant wrong of negro suffrage should be
righted, and the white men and women of the
South shall be relieved, not only of the insult
ing stigma implied in such legislation, but of
the mighty and multitudinous peris, which
must infallibly and almost Immediately follow
in its track. Is it not monstrous and horrible
beyond example and beyond conception, that
the Radical party should have put the law
making power of the South in the hands of
race that, in its native country, never met in
convention tor any other purpose but to roast
and eat It's enemies? Can such people-ig-
norant, superstitious and degraded-be made
fit depositarles Of political power and proper
guardians Of the sacred legacy of freedom be-
queathed us by our fathers?
1t is, l know, emphatically impossible that
such a race can become the permanently domi-
nant and governing power of the South, except
through such earthquake convulsions and such
scenes of blood as have never saddened and
desolated any land on earth before. It is the
very height of folly and madness to suppose
that such an event can be brought about by
peaceable means No system of political leger-
demain, which the ingenuity of man can devise,
will be competent to the accomplishment of that
result It. however, against all rational expec-
tatlon and In spite of all our remonstrances and
ettOrtS-and after resistance on our part In all
its forms-the catastrophe of negro supremacy
should be consummated in the Southern States,
nothing will be left us but to appeal from the
cruelty Of man to the mercy of God, by giving
our women and children to the grave and fol-
lowing the example of brave old Edmund Ruff
fin. The remedies of hopelessly oppressed
people are few-but are simple, sharp and de-
cisive.
Look at some of the very curious and melan-
choly results of the recent election in Virginia
for members Of the So called State Convention.
Some twenty-five or thirty negroes, no more
than half dozen of whom perhaps could either
read or write, were elected delegates to that
body; and, under the malign, yet absolute, in
fuence of such unprinci pied and vindictive
wretches as Hunnicutt and Underwood, en-.
gagged in the work of framing the fundamental
law for the people of this ancient and renowned
Commonwealth a work the most delicate, diff
fcut and responsible to be found within the
range OF human intelligence and statesman
ship-and to be confded to such hands! Was
there ever so wild and fantastic, and withal so
serious and dangerous farce enacted on this
earth BEFORE in any age or in any land any
where beneath the circuit of the sun? To wit
ness such spectacle, amid the boasted light
and glory Of the nineteenth century, is enough
to mantle the face of Christendom with burn
ing blush OF shame and Indignation.
But look, repeat, to few of the particular
results of the election last fall! In four of the
principal cities of the Commonwealth, contain
ing large proportion of the intelligence, re-
finement, wealth and commercial enterprise of
the atate-Richmond, Norfolk, Petersburg and
Lynchburg-negrO representatives were elected
to the convention. The county OF Hanover
that gave birth to Patrick Henry and Henry
Clay-the county of Charlotte, where rest the
remains of John Randolph and Patrick Henry
the county of Albemarle, the seat Of our State
University, the home Of the Randolphs the
Rives, the Gilmers, and the home and burial
place ct the Immortal author OF the Declaration
| OF Independence county Of Orange, which
| is the county Of Madison, the chief author and
| expounder Of the Federal constitution, and the
| birth place of President Taylor-the county of
Charles City the birth place and home while
living OF President Tyler and many other
counties equally noted on account of some proud
or pleasing historical incident, were represented
| in the late sovereign convention of our State by
| ignorant and semi-savage Radical negroes
And, as if to cap the climax of grotesque and
revolving absurdity-as though in supreme rid
icule and contempt of the eternal fitness of
things" and of all the pgoprieties and decen-
cies Of life-nearly all of our institutions Of
| learning we're also represented by stupid and
illiterate negroes :-Hampden Sydney College,
Randolph Macon, the University Of Virginia,
and the illustrious and venerable College Of
William and Mary. Surely these details should
be sufficient to afford even to the blind people
of the North, proper conception of the bitter
and humiliating trusts Of negro suffrage, and
awaken their disgust and abhorrepoe for that
Radical and Jacobinical policy which seeks te
trample ''all that is lovely and of good report
among men, beneath the feet of stoid igno
rance and savage brutality.
Look, also, at the character of the white
Radical leaders at the South, who have banded
the me- groes together in secret, oath bound
league organizations; who have, without prov
ocation or decent pretext, arrayed them in hos
tility to their former masters, and who, in fact
own them body and soul, and control their ev
cry thought, sentiment and motion The Rad
ical party south of the Potomac white Dor
ton of it, at least-is infinitely meaner, more
unprincipled, vindictive and brutal than thu
same party at the North There, its leaders
at least, are men Of talent and of social infu
ence and personal respectability. Here, or
the contrary, they are the very scu 4 and dreg:
| 90 ,oo;otu Tboro fha hotafn1 onr, Jo,uouo..