The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1879-03-13
1.-THE Rives usnrnation. y


resents than to have an excuse for iniaming
race prejudices and >arousing bitter enmi-
ties against Federal officials. The matters
involved are purely judicial, and will in time
be judicially passed upon, and to the calm,
impartial arbtrament of the Courts we are
perfectly willing to submit the issues raised
upon their merits. 1t is true we are not
lawyers, nor do we pretend to discuss legal
points with technical arrangement and accu-
racy. 1t does not, however, require legal
training and acumen to expose the soph-
istry and partizan chicanery of the Dispatch,
and some of its more stupid and stolidly
Ignorant Democratic contemporaries, nor is
familiarity with legal methods necessary to
interpret the English language and to under
stand the purport of constitutional provis-
ions and statutory enactments. In this case
especially does it not require any great legal
learning to reach conclusion, when
there is disposition to be fair and impair
tial. Had the Dispatch itself been con-
vinced that Judge Rives had committed a
legal blunder, it would have addressed itself
to calm exposure Of the error, and not re-
sorted to the indecent and malicious perso-
nal epithets it has employed in its super
fetal and partizan reference to the sub
ject.
1t suits the purpose of agitators and the
partizan defamers of Judge Rives. to en-
tirely ignore the origin of the conflict of
Jurisdiction, now so industriously availed of
to make party capital. Had Judge Tredway
been indicted for practically nulifying a Fede-
raj law, in the case of the Reynolds negroes, as
he ought to have been, and had the Legislature
of Virginia irpeached him for violating his
oath OF office, as it ought to have done, a
different phase to the controversy might now
be given. When the Reynolds prisoners,
through their counsel. filed a petition under
section GAL U. S. Revised Statutes, asking
for the removal of the case to the United
States Co urt, after having been refused a
reconstruction Of the jury, in accordance
with the Federal and State laws, the law OF
Congress inhibited any further proceedings
in the State Courts. Yet in contemptuous
defiance of this supr e1ne authority, the trial
OF the accused was proceeded with ver-
dict of guilty found as to both of them-one
Sc ntenced to be hung and the. other to the
penitentiary for fifteen years, when in this
latter case there was not one particle OF evil
dence upon which to base such verdict. The
accused had gotten out of the way of Shelton !;
bat was followed up and knocked down with
a club, Reynolds making no resistance, when
his br other, under an impulse, ran to his as
sistance and struck Shelton with a tobacco
knife. fro m the effects of which he died.
Yet for being knocked down by Shelton, the
negro boy was sentenced to the penitentiary,
on a re-hearing Of the case, for eighteen
years, and the other brother to be hung. The
result Of the trial, shows that the attorney
for the accused was perfectly right in ask
ing for trans fer of the case to the United
States Court, as the law provides, and that
Judge Tredway had not the shadow of law for
persisting in the trial after the petition had
been filed. Thr ougho out the whole proceed
ings in the State Courts there was an utter
defiance of Federal law; and it was to pre-
vent recurrence OF this anomalous and
dangerous precedent and disregard of the
sanctity and authority of national laws that
the more recent occurrence in the United
States Court at Danville took place.
We might give narrowing recital OF the
brutal and heatEenish treatment of these
negro boys before they were brought to
trial-how they were both confined in one
iron cage three by six feet, and four feet
high. with another prisoner, when no at
tempt or threat of escape had been made
the sickening stencil which drove the attor-
ney from the CRATES when he went to see
them after having been employed by their
mother to defend them but as that is not
part of the record, and only shows the ami
mus of their prosecutors, we will leave it for
others more familiar with the facts to bring
them to the attention of the public. If the
injustice perpetrated in the trial of these
two negro boys-an injustice as to the one,
that the Court of Appeals of Virginia at
tempted to remedy and the Attorney Gener-
al turned from with disgust-is a specimen
of State Sovereignty as interpreted by
Patrick county jury, it is time the country
knew it, and all good citizens Joined In an
effort to correct it, whether through the
State or Federal Courts. The people of Vir-
ginia have no sympathy with any such Grim
inal wrong, and when all the facts are be-
mill of CHI i,l-
judgment of condemnation, and giving
to all judicial proceedings to
prevent repetition.
AS we have stated, however, the whele
matter will, most likely, be adjudicated by a
higher court. and until conclusion is there
reached. we shall rest satisfied with the pre-
we have already made, and to
which the Dispatch does not pretend to re-
ply.
a communication from an intelligent citizen
of Rockingham county, published in anoth- |
er column. The writer has ample opportu- |
mites of learning public sentiment, and is |
'ent of opinion among the thinking portions
If the community. In private note he says:
Il was Re-adjuster, but am not disposed to
olew Capt. Paul and others, whose course
will re- adjust the creditors of the State out
If the last dollar of their claims, and leave
he State herself bankrupt in honor. Further
citation of this question means repudia-
ion. Your course on this question
meets with the approval of every right think
ng man In this community. Keep up your
icks, and save the State, if you can, from
he calamity of repudiation-a calamity
1ore to be dreaded than ''war, pestilence
md famine"
The sentiment here expressed cores
onds with that communicated to us from
Their localities in Rockingham, which salts
les us that the intelligent and sturdy pee-
lie of that great county, are fully alive to
he. importance of speedy settlement of
he debt question aud the cessation of harm
ul agitation.