The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-06-03
TUESDAY EVEN'G, JUNE 8, 1873
Tssa Issue as Presented by the Con.



to overlook or disregard the prevailing ten
dency of the age, in estimating the practi-
cal objects of party organization. Wis
dom and expediency, not mere abstract
truth, should be the objects of the legis-
lator and statesman. Governments,
whether state or federal, should be looked
upon as the means Of securing, promo
ting, and advancing the general public
good, as well as the individual
happiness, personal security, and material
and social advancement. In proportion as
local antipathies, geographical rivalries and
sectional animosities are cultivated, the
general good of the whole country is neg
lected and especially is this true in refer
ence to the sections i'll which these malign
sentiments and influences are most exerted.
Wherever sectional feuds are most en-
Uttered, and the passions they en-
gender most intense, there the evil
falls the heaviest and becomes most preiu-
dicial to the general good. No great ma
tional or state party can afford to plant
itself on personal hates or feuds, as these
will sooner or later settle the fate of those
who indulge them, if they do not involve
the destruction of others as inevitable as
the parry seeking to engender them.
Measures divide parties into far more
hostile attitudes than principles although,
as general rule, the worst Of measures
are put forth and sustained under the
disguise Of the best principles, if not
asserted and vigorously promulged from
the most vicious Of motives. This may
be accounted for on the ground that
prejudice is stronger than patriotism,
and popular passions, when thoroughly
aroused, more dangerous than even Sec
tional animosities. In proportion as cast
or race prejudice takes hold of the public
mind, are all the avenues to wholesome
popular sentiment closed, and the door
opened for the worst brood of evils to
troop in. Expediency, the true handmade
of wisdom in public affairs, is lost sight of,
and whatever popular measures are re-
sorted to, they are sure to prove detrimen-
tai, If not disastrous, in the end.
The single issue sought by the Conser-
tive party in this state, in view of the APP
preaching fall election, is forcible illustra-
ton of these views. Its press and poll
ticians are sedulously endeavoling to inn
press on the public mind that there can be
but one issue-,no less preposterous in
character than vicious in tendency and
that is, whether the white man or the
black shall rule Virginia "a PROPOSE
ton preposterous in character for the rea-
son that the white population outnumbers
the black by over two hundred thousand
in the state, and vicious in tendency for the
reason that it is impossible to array race
against race under popular form of gov
eminent without inviting, as an element
in.politics, the very worst passions capable
OF. exhibition in republican government.
But mark how plain proposition shall
put them down on this pretentious issue,
orrather mark how single inquiry shall
put to fight all their mischievous and un-
candid reasoning. If all or two-thirds of
the colored men in the state were Conser-
vatives, would these special negro-haters
cease to be Conservatives If not, why
should white Republicans cease to be Repb-
licans because the colored voters cast their
suffrages for their party candidates? Would
itplace Virginia under negro supremacy if a
majority Of the colored people in the state,
yielding to the solicitations of its party
leaders as made four years ago, should vote
the Conservative ticket? If not, why
should the same vote affect the Republican
party otherwise than it did the Conserya-
tiVes ieur years ago, when they solicited
and obtained large numbers of negro
votes?
1t is only necessary to PROFOUND these
inquiries to show the utter fallacy of the
issue as presented by the Conservative
press and politicians of the state. We
have heretofore characterized this charge,
now so persistently maintained by our po-
lltcal opponents, as a malignant and au-
dacious falsehood as presenting an issue
not even desired by the colored people
themselves. There is only here and
there a colored man who is seized
with the idea that he is born
statesman, in spite of his educational de-
fects but it generally happens that these
persons are better measured by their own
race than by the whites, and would
promptly find their level if left to the
negro vote for their personal advancement.
Negroes have natural dislike for popin-
jays of all sorts, political or otherwise, and
especially for those of their own color, of
whom they would make short work at
the polls, whatever might be their preten-
sions.
Because the colored people are so far right
as to agree with large majority Of the
white voters of the country, we do not see
why the white voters of Virginia should lay
aside their honest convictions as to policy,
party, expediency, duty, right and country
for any such preposterous reasons as our
contemporaries would urge. But this in
curry is fruitful enough for dozen edto-
rails.
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WE hone that the neonle of Tnniaiana