The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-10-28
BLIND LEADERS.


Thoughtful men must, by this time, be
aware, that the people of Virginia are
growing poorer and weaker each year;
that our decline in wealth and material
prosperity is the result of the mistaken and
pernicioas political opinions by which we
have been governed; that the mass of the
people, wiser than their leaders, are rapidly
Abandoning the errors into which they have
heretofore been driven, and by which they
are now fearfully cursed. abt
Raleigh Travers Daniel, John b. Bald
win, Alex. II. II. Stuart and half dozen
other men like them, certainly the most
ambitious, and possibly the ablest of the
Democratic leaders, have heretofore
made the public sentiment in the
State speaking from the front door
o. the Cathedral, reared in their own
con,eit, have told the people what
they must think, what they must be-
lieve, and finally how they must act.
Only recently, these leaders were arrogant,
imperious and dictatorial, and being so,
they advised the people to Sreat the first
and mo liberal measure of amnesty and
reconstruction offered by Congress, with
scorn and contempt. Later, they pro-
claimed that negroes were neither fit for nor
entitled to the right Of suffrage that the
jury-box should be closed to them that
the whipping-post was proper
means for their general degradation; and
that each of the enlightened provisions in
the Constitution, in favor of equality of
rights and privileges, should be contempt
ously spurned and stoutly resisted. How
one by one each of these opinions in turn has
been abandoned, and new departure has
been taken by the leaders, is. history and
need not be repeated. The great vice
which ran through all their theories and
tainted all their enterprises was this: that
every position taken by them was inimical
to the interests Of the State, disastrous to
her prosperity, and ruinous to the people.
At the expiration Of six years after the
close Of the war, we find the Democratic
party of Virginia stripped of every prn-
ciple which it possessed when the war
ended, driven from every position it then
took. Without principle or policy it now
enters upon canvass with no banners,
and only one motto, hate Of Radicalism.
1t can point to no one act Of the Repub-
lican party in Virginia, nor to any article
of its political creed, to which it dare make
open opposition, but it simply undertakes
to array one class Of the people against the
other, to solidify native citizens against
those born in other States, to oppose one
race to another, who ought to be friends,
and to make enemies of all men who dc
not think and vote with the Democratic
party.
Such an undert liking is unnatural in the
extreme; if successful, it can only exag-
gerate the evils a,realy existing; it risks
every substantial interest of the State, and
wages an unceasing and remorseless war
against every attempt at adjustment, re-
construction, and permanent peace; and
all this is done simply that old leaders may
continue to lea /, and old vices be propa
gated in the future, as they have been fos
tered in the past. We ask the people
whether it is not high time that they shoult
begin to think and act for themselves
The people want the constitution EN-
forced they want relief from burdcnsomf
taxation; they want an economical and
honest administration of State affairs they
want an honest, impartial, and unpartisar
Judiciary; they want liberal homestead
law, justly and benignly executed; they
want generous invitation offered to emf
grants and capital they want strife and
bitterness to give place to peace anC
harmony. The leaders, however, want nc
one of these things but desire that taxation
shall be adjusted to meet reviews ofmoneJ
changers. They want tho affairs of Stat
administered as to provide slnecures an(
asylums for their broken-down associates
They desire a judiciary, tools of their own
ready and willing to nullify the law. The.
wish that the homestead law should b
stripped, in the future as it has been in tn
past, Of every provision that can be of ser
vice to the poor and the distressed. The
wish to exclude emigrants and capital, an'