The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-10-23

Gzzxzax.zIs-s--zssr-----zz----
THE Conservatives find it more diff
cult task than they expected to enforce that
system Of CONSUMPTION which they devised
and decreed in their convention of 30th
September. The organization by fives,
tens, fifties and hundreds is capital for
coercion, if it only could be enforced. But
the people Of the State, though accustomed
to the goad of political coercion, are at last
asserting little of the spirit of individual
independence which belongs to the Anglo
Saxon race. The dragooning system
worked well, enough during the war for
forcing lukewarm secessionists into the
Confederate army; but the boots, spurs
and sabres of CONSUMPTION were then physi-
cal realities. The same coercive policy can
now be directed only to the fears not
to the persons of the citizens; and some of
these have pluck enough to defy it. Then,
men might or might not think secession
was blunder and crime but were re-
quired to fight its battles, let them think
as they might. Now, the opinions of
citizens are coerced by a CONSUMPTION
even more tyrannical than the Dragooning
Bureau of the Confederacy; but opinion is
an intangible thing which will act for itself;
and among the whole race Of white people
in Virginia some are found fit for better
fortune than mental debasemcnt and
slavery.
Mr.. Baldwin, of Staunton, is the putative
author Of the CONSUMPTION now in force on
the peace establishment. Like Mr.. Stephens
and other Wings that once were
Union men, he did not become thoroughly
warlike until the war Of arms was over .
To him, more than any other Virginia man,
belongs the proud honor of organizing the
passions and hatreds engendered by war
in which he took no bloody part, into par
tisan mutiny and sedition against all that
was meant by that grand old Wing motto
---"THE UNIoN-THE CONSTITUTION
AND OBEDIENCE TO THE LAWS"
Mr.. Baldwin is said to boast that he de-
vised the plan of this latter malignant con-
scription in cold and calculating elaboration
at home that on his way down to the Sep
TENDER Conservative convention in Rich
mond, he fell in with old Mr.. Smith. of
Fauquier, (who is familiarity known as Ex-
ira Billy at Gordonsvillc; travelled with
him; slept with him; had him appointed
chairman of organization /; and got him to
report his plan of conscription without
dotting an or crossing at.
The old Democratic theory was that the
citizen is sovereign; that the citizens of
the country are the masters of the govern
ment and Of every officer in it and that par
ties are servants Of the people, not their
lords. But the crafty wing of Staunton Sc
duced the old Democrat of Fauquier into
reputation of the good old Democratic
theory; and TO become an instrument in
setting up party above the people, and SUBJ
stituting for the sovereigns collar for
crown.
The plan of organization is to require
every citizen to enroll his name upon the
party conscription lists. The plan is, to
put captains over them in squads of fiyes.
tens, fifties and hundreds. The plan is, to
sink the privates in this organization into
mere machines, to be ordered about, and
handled, by the captains, as their masters
and commanders. The plan is, to degrade
sovereign citizens into abject servants of
partisan captains and through the captains,
of higher partisan officials who may vote
them or sell them as they may choose. |
The plan is, as to all white men who NAV
dare refuse to be enrolled, to keep over
them system of housing espionage to
report their ms and outs I; to make note Of
their personal and political associations
and to bring to bear upon them
all the terrific denunciations which
their well-tutored writers, speakers,
and yelpers generally, know so well how to
bestow upon scalawags and carpet bag
gers. The plan is, to make the State too
not for those sovereign citizens who refuse
10 be enrolled and degraded and to leave,
N no spot of the Commonwealth, opinion
30 free, that that spot could truthfully bear
he inscription" JVhere the scicked cease
from troubling, and the seemy are at rest.o
Dragooning, conscribing; this has been
be tactics of the same set Of politicians