The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-10-10
. LETTER FROM COLONEL HUGHES

last issue of the Stanton Vrginian. II
is addressed to Mr.. Yost, the editor OF
that paper and that gentleman prefixed
to it an editorial introduction, giving
interesting "reminiscences of the Charleston
Democratic national convention of 1860,
which we are sorry to be unable to
reproduce. Suffice it to say that he fully
confirms the statement of Colonel
Hughes as to his own action while in
attendance upon that body fs,i q ~
SIN. Yost, ESQ.,:
Dear Sir--Our political enemies seem
to give much importance to my course on
the subject Of secession during the years
immediate preceding the war. They i'm
pute sentiments to me in regard to it,
which | never authorized; they set about
to refute these statements; and then seek
to prejudice me by the contradictions which
they pretend to establish. III
Whether L was o secessionst or not, be-
fore the war, is a question which has MOTH
ing to do with the great issue OF the pres
ent canvass ; namely, whether Virginia
Shall become national in her politics, or re-
main sectional. A man who was seces-
sionist before the war, can now be national
Z with as much honesty and sincerity, as
man who held union politics before that
event, can now tie himself to the sectional
party. What o man was before che war,
on these questions, furnishes no reason for
his being now either of sectional or Union
politics. Opinion is free in this country, or
ought to be; and no man is justified now
in subjecting his patriotic Judgment on liv-
ing questions, to the thraldom of opinions
which he may have held on dead ones, be-
fore one of the most tremendous revolutions
that ever occurred in history. -e.
Down to April 1865, held to state
rights, southern politics, embracing the
theoretical right Of secession. | have
never pretended or stated to the contrary.
But my enemies have charged that did
as much to carry Virginia out of the
Union as any other man. This charge
have denied. l have opposed to the charge
some facts, viz first, that / left the Rich
mond Examiner in 1857, and had no con-
nection with Virginia politics until seces-
sion actually occurred in 1861 I'd. except
that went to Charleston as an active friend
of Judge Douglas, in 1860, to oppose the
secession party; Sd. and except that l
wrote some articles in March 1861, in
favor of Virginia throwing in her lot with
the southern states after most of them had |
seeded at Montgomery in February 1S61.I
The only statements have made or
authorized, are substantially embodied in
the following extracts:
[From the Culpeper Speech.l
had been up to 1865, all my life, a
warm state-rights, southern man. 1t has
been the habit of my enemies to praise the
ability and earnestness of my exertions
in that cause down to the fall of the Con-
federacy. They now 60 ba elk sixteen and |
twenty years to hunt up vic lent articles in |
the Richmond Examiner (Which every one |
who is acquainted with my style knows / |
never wrote, but for which | own myself |
responsible if they were published be- |
tween 1858 and 1857 to show the extrav- |
agance of my zeal for the southern cause.
Yes, | was faithful to the southern and |
state-rights cause as long as there was |
one and no man in all this land has ever
impeachcd it. go
[F.om pamphlet showing political course of r. |
w. Hughes, since 1s57.l
"The Examiner upheld the doctrines of |
the Democratic party, and warmly and |
effectively supported its cause. The |
distinguishing principles of that political |
school were embodied in the state-rights |
theories of '9S and 90. Among them, the |
Democrats Of the south held that the |
theoretical right Of secession was em-
braced. As late as 1857, so far from the
advocates of that school of doctrines hav- |
ing proposed an actual resort to the right of |
secession, they expressly contended that the
establishment of the right would be the |
best safeguard against the necessity of
resorting to it.; because the aggressive
section of tho Union recognizing ac-
tual secession as the inevitable consequence
of aggression, would refrain from proceed
ing to engths.o Thus the question stood,
left the press of the state, in 1857 and un-
Union, the official organ OF MIR. Buchanan's |
administration. The Washington Union
was Union paper, and while upholding
the doctrines of tho Democratic party op-
posed and discountenanced all movements
looking to an actual rupture of the Union.
s"This writer left Washington in the sum
mer of 1859; and thenceforward, until
after secession was contaminated by the
formation of the government at Montgom-
cry, had no connection with the press
whatever, being engaged in agriculture and
railroad affairs in Southwest Virginia. In
that interval he had no sort of connection
with politics, except to go to the Demo-
cratic national convention, which met at
Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1860,
where be labored with all his might, but
labored in vain, to secure the nomination
of Stephen A, Douglas. His hopes and
endeavors were then thwarted, by whom?
by the advocates, or at least those who
became, the advocates of actual secession. I
If the endeavors of this writer, and of |
those with whom he acted OF Charleston
had been successful, there would have
been no secession, no war, no desolation
of the state and of the south. - |
"Mr. Lincoln was elected in 1860, and Sc
cesssion did occur. The Montgomery
government was formed in February, and
then the question arose whether Virginia
should adhere to the south or forsalSe the |
south and engage with the north. During
the latter part of March this writer pub !
lished some half dozen articles in one of |
the journals of Richmond mot The Ex-
aminer, with which he had no connection |
from the fall of 1857 until late in April, |
1861 urging that it was the duty of Vir-
gina to make common cause with The south. |
An idea, then very prevalent and plausible,
was, that the whole south, by presenting |