The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1877-08-30

ton, that darcS to defy the ring managers,
while the sympathies and interests OF three
fourths OF the people are against them. 1t
is knowledge Of this fact and the hope of
stimulating the people to stand by their.
rights against caucus tyranny and ring des-
potism, that stirs us to the unusual labor we
undergo, and the devotion of all our spare
time from official duties to their service.
And it is because these efforts have had their
influence in aronsing the people to the inn
portance of the perils before them that the
malicious assaults of the two Richmond pa
pers have been directed against us. Such
insolent presumption is entitled really to
nothing but silent contempt, and were it
not to expose the meanness Of the attacks,
we should SO have passed them off. We
have ever treated those journals with the
utmost courtesy, and why they should have
combined and by simultaneous effort sought
to misrepresent and pervert facts, can be
explained upon no other hypothesis than that
they are conscious Of the deception they are
practicing upon the people and fearful of its
exposure.
The new method of "bulldozing" these
ring organs have adopted will not inspire
| the people with confidence in the cause they
represent, nor will it command respect where
it was designed it should have effect. The
freedom of the press is still recognized in
this country, and however it may be the
wish of the marplots wine would suppress it
upon the sol! where the Declaration of indie
pendence and the Virginia Bill OF Rights
| were first proclaimed, they will have to await
the Inauguration of another than Republi-
can administration to accomplish it. The
Republican party is the party of freedom
and of equal rights, and, above all, of free
discussion, that the people may be enlight-
ened. It has confidence in the honest pur-
poses Of the people, and it is not afraid to
trust them. Had tile Convention which
adopted the deceptive platform, the criti-
cism of which has caused this assault upon
us, reflected the will Of the people, they
would have passed the resolution endorsing
the administration Of the President, instead
of quietly referring it to committee, there
to sleep. 1t is the policy Of the scheming
politicians to conceal the truth and to sup
press popular feeling and sympathy; and it
is because the VIRGINIAN has stood by the
! people in their contests With the ring ma
nipulators, that these journals have conspired
in the contemplate device which bristled
over their columns OH last Saturday. twill
prove as futile as it is contemplate. The
reign Of the bulldozers will not be inaugu-
rated in Virginia, nor has the wrath of their
proffered organs any terrors either for the
editor OF the VALLEY VIRG1NIAN or the
"Staunton Postmaster"
4 1.-THE Erring South"
Postmaster General Key, in one Of his
brief of-handed speeches during the recent
visit of the President to the Eastern States,
playfully alluded to himself as representa-
tive of the f" errins South" The expression
has been taken up and harshly, not to say
viciously, criticised by some of the leading
Southern journals, and of course initiated
by all the small fry newspapers Of the De-
mocratic school. They savagely boast that
the South committed no error and has moth
ing to repent OF, and that Mr.. Keys remarks
are an insult to the Southern people. If the
South did not "err,'' then it would have
been the best thing that conll have occurred
to have broken up the Union and established
Southern Confederacy. with slavery as its
chief cornerstone, TO be followed, in the
course of time, by Western and Pacific
Confederacy. Is there sane man in the
South now who will not say this would have
been an error? Is there reasoning man in
the South who will not say, with the lights
now before him, that chattel slavery was an
error?
There is no reflection upon the motives OF
the Southern people in such an admission
now. A great many of them honestly he
lieved they were right in attempting seces
sion, and during the supremacy OF sectional
sentiment did not discover the error they
had committed. Very few of them, who are
not blinded by fanaticisn, will not now
say that it was all error, and yet not co a.
promise the convictions that controlled them
in the civil strife. Postmaster General K ey
has had the courage to say what he believes,
and very few dispassionate men will differ
from him. Those who do, and at the same
time assert their loyalty to the Union now,
are guilty of great inconsistency. II they
committed no error, and believed that seces-
sion was right and that the Union ought to
be discovered. their profession of devotion
to that Union is mere sham. There is no
sincerity about it, and it is only the oppor-
tunity that is wanting for them to repeat
what they have before failed to accomplish.
If the South committed no error in the
effort to break up the National Government,
then the North and West did commit an
! error in preserving it. Which is right? It
the South, then it is about time that the
and asking forgiveness for maintaining and
perpetuating national authority in all the
States the demand of Mr.. WI. Royal, OF
Richmond, Va, as made in recent commu-
nication to the Cincinnati Commercial, that
the old flag should be torn up and new
emblem instituted, because some Of his
friends had been killed fighting against that
flag, and he could never look upon it with
anything but adherence, ought to be granted.
There is no dishonor or disgrace in ac-
knowledging an error, when convinced one
has been committed. It is, in fact, the part
Of true moral courage to do so. Mr.. Key
believes this is s' Nation,' with supreme
| power, and not confederation of sover-
eighties. Believing so now, he could have
said nothing less than that secession was an
error. The common judgment Of the South
| will say he is right, whatever the hotspurs
| and marplots may declare.
Not True.
| The State of the 25th says the VALLEY
VIRGINIAN "came to us yesterday bristling
with reputation arguments and senti-
ments." This is not true, in the sense the
State uses it. We favor the "repudiation -
Il