Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1874-10-13
TO THE DEMOCRATIC OoNsERVA-
TIYRV0TERs OF JEFPBRSoNGO.

II
the direction of your representatives, in re-
cent County Convention, feel called upon in
the discharge of the duties imposed upon
them, to address few words of warning
touching the important election now nigh At
hand.
The omission, since the selection of your
candidates, of the usual discussions from the
hastings, the gravity of the interests which
are to be decided in the contest, and the dis
fractions attempted to be thrown into your
ranks by candidates acting independently. of
your organization, not only justify but demand
the ttterance of the views they now present.
Although there has been but little, if any, of
either the earnestness or excitement generally
existing in political canvass, where cues.
tions of public policy of any moment are to
be determined, the Committee believe it will
require not much reflection to convince all.
that at no time in the history of this State
has there been greater necessity for Dem
oc.atic and Conservative triumph than at the
present.
You have lately established new Consti.
tuition for the government of the State. The
benefits it has already conferred you have ex-
perienced in large reduction of taxes. in the
healthy tone given to the State finances. in n
benefcent and improved system of public edu-
cation, in the abolition of the oppressive disa>
bllities which it has removed, and whose res
toration it renders impossible SO long as it ex>
lists; in the reference of local questions to To-
cal tribunals; in better and more elevated
judicial system, and in the possibility of still
further notifications of it by the direct action
OF the people, where found desirable, and in
stricter accountability of your agents who
handle the public moneys
HMuch tharafnra has haar .cooror1;oboa h.,
it, but much yet remains to be achieved under
it. The work of reform which it has iraugus
ted has only been partially performed It re-
quires friendly legislation to make many of its
leading provisions effective. But the threat
has been made, should opportunity be afforded,
not only to arrest your purposes in this direc>
ton, but even to restore the proscriptive in.
strument, whose expressions, it is believed,
you have not forgotten. Candidates a.e al
ready in the field claiming your SURFACES
whose names are inseparably and prominently
connected with the most odious features of
your past organic law and Legislative euact>
ments.
Your disfranchisement, your exclusion from
courts of justice, whose machinery was denied
you il the enforcement of honest claims the
refusal to you of the right to pursue the occu>
pations upon whose exercise your means of
support depended, are parts of the hi sory of
your State. Do you desire that that history,
or any part of it, should be repeated?
And yet what guaranty have you, should
you place agr.n in power not only the party
who inflicted these degrading measures upon
you, but its very representatives who were
foremost in their advocacy in the halls of the
Leg ature OF the State, that these same mea>
sures with which you grsppled in life and
death struggle, will not be re-enacted? Be as
sured that "the leopard changes not his spots,
nor the Ethiopian his skin"
The above copsiderat ons refer wholly to
your internal State affairs and purely domestic
concerns. But his contest las q wider range.
Your interests, as connected with national mat
tiers, are to be affected by it. The members of
the Legislature you are about 20 choose will be
required to elect United States Senator, Cor
six years from the 4th of March, 1875, and
upon the vote of your county alone will, in all
probability, depend the selection of candidate
in the lower House of Congress from the End
Congressional district. OF the importance of
the choice to be made it is needless to speaL.
That the Democratic and Conservative party
is entitled to both, and, Is harmony and unity
of action prevail, will elect both, no one who
has any knowledge of its strength in the State
to attain such result party organization and
combined effort are absolutely necessary. 1t
cannot divide its forces between regular and
Independent candidates without great danger
of failure. And the the 10 3, at this time, Of
State known to be largely Democratic, by d.
visions among the members of the Democratic
party, would be peculiarly unfortunate, aud of
most pernicious example. Whilst doubtful
States have taken their position in the line of
battle forming for the great National Conflict
in 1876, will West Virginia chill the hopes,
existing throughout the country, for victory
then that will sweep from power party whose
accumulated corruptions and surpations, for
ffteen years, have brought the nation to the
perious edge of ruin?
These are questions, Democrats and Con-
servatives of Jefferson County, with which
you will have much to do on Tuesday next!
The responsibility is no ordinary one the
Committee hope that you are fully prepared to
meet it. EuS they respectfully and earnestly
urge that you cannot reasonably expect success
under any other condition than that of support
ofyour party nominees! Should you divide
your suffrages between them and those inde>
pendent candidates who have heretofore acted
with you, theres,are other candidates, upon
whom you can haven no claim to carly out
single principle to which you are attached,
who, under the rigid dicipline of the party
with which they are identified, and with whom
you have not and cannot have, single po-
litical sentiment in common, will, By a n,i>
nortty vote, glide into places which you are
legitimately entitled to fill.
Remember then, and this We seek to i'm
press upon you, that every vote which you
cast from personal considerations, or other
wise, for any independent candidate, even of
Democratic or Conservative antecedents, en-
hances the chances of those other candidates
who are now in open communion with, and