The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-10-11
ELEcTIoN-DAY:
TUESDAY NOVEMBER a. 1878.
WHAT OLD-LINE WINGS AND MA.
TIONAL DEMOCRATS SHOULD DO.

TUESDAY NOVEMBER A, 1878.
WHAT OLD-LINE WINGS AND Ma.
TIONAL DEMOCRATS SHOULD DO.
We have repeatedly charged that the
Conservative party of Virginia was moth
ing more nor less than the old Wing party
secessionized by and brought into utilization
with the Democratic party Of the state /;
that the original integrity, uprightness and
nationality of the Wing party had been
overborne, if not entirely crushed out, by
the weight of secession influence, after its
last great struggle for national ascendancy,
In 1852; and that. afterwards, the great
body of the party in this state either sur
rendered themselves up to seces-
sionism, or fought it hopelessly
out until 1861, when they reluctantly.
embraced the foul political Hecats,
at whose polluted affairs they have since
worshipped, as if she had been their
chosen divinity from the outset. Every
knee was then made to bow at her political
shrine, and every mouth compelled to
utter her praises, as effectually as if she
had taught her new votaries their confess
sion OF faith at the original orgies of seces-
sion, when young Yancey's lips were first
touched by that coal of maddened fire
which was ultimately destined to set the
nation in blaze, if not to extinguish the
last vestige of liberty upon this cont.
rent.
All this we have repeatedly charged,
and our Conservative contemporaries as
repeatedly denied. But no party barometer
has ever more faithfully indicated the pres
sue of the political atmosphere than that
in which the mercurial columns of the old
Wing party Of Virginia were finally weighed
down by the constituting force of seces-
sion. 1t was the unsheathed dagger Of
that old political bag, clenched firmly in
her defiant grasp, and menacingly shaken
from behind the secession curtains, that
forced the old Wing leaders--those
who had fought against the foul
Hecate from the frst--to plunge
hea1long into the vortex she had
prepared for their reception in 1861. The
time had come when they no longer dared
to face the music Of the Union, especially
while the uphfted dagger of secession
threatened to drink the first as we'll as the
last globule Of their recrcant blood and
SO they plunged in-not into the swollen
Tiber TO breast it manfully for political as
cendancy, but into the the maddened vortex
of disunion, from which there was no es-
cape except through sea of brothers,
blood.
This is the history of the old Wing
party Of Virginia as secessionized
and brought into subsection to
the Democratic party first, to
fight the battles of that party for the des-
truction of the Union, and, afterwards, to
be christened into the faith and spirit, if
not the letter, Of Conservatism, which has
proved only another name for secession, or
rather only another pretext for keeping
alive the spirit of secession, even after its
riddled carcase had polluted hundred
battle-lields, and loaded down the national
atmosphere with the stencil of half q
million corpses, sacrificed to the Moloch
of Democratic hate against the Union except
as administered for its own sectional ends
andpurposes. OF course, there were some
Democrats-some honorable exceptions
in the state--who dctested the plotters of
treason in their party, and struggled
hard and long, but always ineffect-
ually, against the contamination of their
traitorous designs. These, with the leaders of
the old Wing party, can have but enc reason
to-day for their Identification with the Con-
sentative party of the state, and that is the
cowardly one of fearing to identify them.
selves with the great national party of the
Union, because usenegroes IN the stole cote
acib it!
We need not charge pusillanimity and
moral cowardice upon those who thus act,
or who thus fear to act, for their own con-
siences must prefer the indictment and force
secret confession of guilt, without syl-
liable of accusation from US. All old-line
Wings and true national, or old Douglas.
Democrats in the state, should be acting
with the Republican party of Virginia to-
day. They have no sympathies in common
with the party which makes secesslon--the
hated thing into which they were dragooned
in ls6l-the GROWING honor of its candi.
Gates in the present political canvass. The
malignant spell or copjuration fatally
fastened upon them in 1861, is, or should
be, effectually broken by this time. They
no longer want the one tooth and one eve
of the secession Gorgon, and should at
once exchange them for the helmet of the |
Union, the winged sandals, and the magic
wallet. in imitation of Perseus, the master
hero of the skies. They can have no en-
thusiasm aroused by the appeals of Gene
raj Kemper to his secession record,''
nor can they desire to retain any further
connection with party which is just as
malignant as ever in the animosities and
hates it exhibits against the Union