Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1870-02-08
Speech of the Hon. S. S, Cox on the
Admission of Virginia.

We regret we have only space for the fol-
lowing extracts from the speech of the Hon.
s. S. Cox, of New York city, on the admis-
sion of Virginia. 1t was pronounced by lead
ing journals as one of the ablest made on
the subject
In the light of these canons of progressive
political ply iosophy, where is the man to rise
up and say that all goodness and greatness,
all policies Of right, and all genius Of states
manship belonged to that miserable mockery
of mosaic convention which wintcred at
Richmond in 1867 6S? Who will say that a
convention made up CT the UnderwUQds,
Welses, and Chambers, (the successors of
Jefferson. George Mason aud Madison
forsooth y who incubated that system of iron
clad tests which even the military SchoGeld
deridcd and the people rejected, were ct leg
it all and for all time! When they and their
endorsers here die all wisdom dies with them
Laughter Your bill says ''never," "never,"
shall their work be changed a convention
where ignorance was representing Intelligence
ard where spite prevailed, and not charity
and even tho muatto BARRIERS and black field.
hands who had sharpened their minds on the
razor-strap and cudgeled their brains with
theirox goads. laughter and had learned some
lessons of kindness toward their old masters
constrained to belle their loving natures by
white bravado and cunningham such con-
vcntion work better than Providence His
heavens are to be rolled up like a scroll, but
we make the work of these men eternal. The
seasons shall come and go in their beautiful
procession along the hlue-tnte mountains of
Virginia, but this Radical structure shall out
live their rocky ridge! In that grand future
down which the historian Alison gazed when
he saw "British greatness setting in the Old to
rise renewed in this New World when the
name of England should survive, under the
shadow Of ancient renown through hundred
and fifty million men in North America speak
ing its language and glorying in its decent"
when from ocean to ocean and equator to pole
the ocean bound Republic of dreams
should rise, sounding down this gorgeous,
prospective corridor of the future, we hear
the voice Of this Virginia convention of 1868
squeaking out its little treble, you shall
never never change the work of this tesse>
lated black and white convention CT 1868! :"
TLaughter And when in that future the
teeming valleys and hills of Virginia shall
smile with cultivation, when even her ensan-
guined ''wiidcrncss" shall blossom as the rose;
when her population of twenty FIVE millions
shall be elevated in the culture Of the ad-
vanced century her magnificent rivers bear
her produce to the sea with inventions un-
dreamed of by us and her cities rival those
of the Genoese, Venetian, Dutch and Spanish
in commercial enterprise, then. methinks,
hear the penny-whistle of this Virginia con-
vention and this Congress still sounding down
the gorgeous perspective, "No change New
er never disturb the work of the mosaic
statesmen Of 1868" [Laughter,1
She gave the Northwestern States to TIL
Union. Guided By her hand they grew to honor,
and even to rival and surpass her Wellthcy re-
member the teachings ftheir mother. When
that mother comes to them in humiliation, shall
she be met with scOru ? Shall she be cast
from them III her hour of need and dcspon-
dency! Shall her very pride, pardonabe
when it gazes upon her past. be cast at her
with Teproach? To insult, menance. distrust
and degrade mother is a scandal onlv less
than a crime Even if that mother has wan.
dered from the household. erratic and soiled
with the vanton waywardness of the world, it
is the sign of an migrate and coward to taunt
and abuse her in her distress. Even the child
of shame would hesitate to heap fresh dis
grace upon the mother which bore him. When
he adds matricide to Dgratitudc the depth of
social infamy is reached There is no lower
depth.
When the war came it was with sadness,
vet with courage. that her sons, under mis-
taken views of allegiance, barred their breasts
to the storm. Her Jacksons and her Lees
did no dishonor to the courage of her revolu>
tiouary blo0l.