Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1871-08-25
rour lands in the Valley and the general

your lands in the Valley and the general
decrease all over the Eastern portion of the
State.
We have not the time nor you the space,
Mr.. Editor for us to pursue this recent
comparative valuation of lands between the
Eastern and Valley Counties. Those al.
read mentioned are bad enough and we
forebear to run the parallel further, at this
time
benefits thus accruing Are they the poor
widow and orphan Of whom we hear so much
said by the authors Of the funding bill :?
No. Let us see.
A correct and generally received estimate
is as follows There are only II millions of
the Bonded debt held by our ownrpeople,
IL millions by others, including foreigners,
and 10 millions by citizens of other States
who aided in our subjugation. Gov. Walk
cr and his New York and Wall Street
friends, no doubt, hold large share and
will make their thousands by the passage
Of the funding dill. Virginia, subjugated
md torn, distracted and bleeding, by the
awful hurricane ofwar which swept over her
as with the bosom of destruction, despoiled
of her Territory and the lives of her toiling
thousands, her law makers should not have
forgotten her in her great affection. They
have incurred responsibilities far beyond her
present available assets. They may have
thought they were taking high and chivalric
ground, but rest assured they struck her
a blow, which will dispirit a gallant and
impoverished people, from which she cannot
recover. She is honorable, patient under
suffering and humiliation with degradation,
but unable to pay and live under the
burthens imposed upon her by misguided
law makers. We, will say for the Valley
Counties, with the burdens already imposed
they cannot pay. Augusta, the wealthiest
Of them all, refused, on three occasions, to
be taxed for the great V. R. R. Nearly
every tax payer in the county wanted the
Road but declared they were unable to pay
the tax imposed. Will they be able then
/, to pay an increase of two fold upon their
present taxes to meet the obligations i'm
posed by the funding bill :?
Virginia has already repudiated all her
obligations to pay her share in the State
Banks, both in the old State and indepen-
dent Banks, whose banking capital rested
upon the credit of the State. She assented
to the act and refuses to pay her treasury
notes, to which she had plighted her faith
and sacred honor. She has, in other words,
repudiated every other obligation to pay her
widows and orphans ard note holders, be-
cause Of her inability to do so by the result
Of the war. 1t is a grave question admit
ting Of but little doubt whether she is any
more bound, morally and legally, to pay
the foreign Bondholder and others than she
is her own people holding other evidences of
her Indebtedness. which was perhaps their
all aud which she was equally bound to pay
Virginia is not the Virginia she was. Sue
is no longer tbs same State in either polit-
ical or territorial point of view She has
been dismembered by the power that now
Expresses her. Her people are not respon-
sible either for the present state of affairs
She has neither the territorial boundaries or
the material wealth she once had. She is
virtually no State at all. only by suferance.
One half Of her may be in the Union, forced
there by threats Of further humiliation and
oppression if she did not crawl in, only to
be taxed by the central government, whilst
her other half is out in the cold, without the
right Of Territory even, with Ku Klux
bill hanging over it and the great magma
charter, the writ of Habeas Corpus, suspen-
ded over the heads of an outraged and OBJ.
pressed people. Are our wives and daugh-
tiers to be further made hewers of wood and
drawers Of water, to sustain, it is said, the
honor of Virginia, but really Yankee capt.
talists and Spectators
Why it is we can have no land sales in
Augusta 1t is not only the ~ per cent
loan but the impending high taxes on our
lands, based upon the adj ualorem prir-
ciple. The funding bill will, therefore,
check emigration to our Valley it will
keep out the shrewd Yankee and other bust
ness men as land buyers, who may stay with
US only to loan their money at II per cent,
or shave and sharp at 20 to 80 per cent
If ever the adage should have been observed
to "make haste slowly" it should have been
| in the passage Of the late Funding bill. We
have given you stern facts and figures, and
not question Of feeling, to show that the
passage Of the funding bill in view of our
crippled assets and the unsettled and unas-
certained claims due by W. Va, was un-
warranted and intolerable under existing
circumstances. A FARMER