The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1882-04-27
A Brief Review.

cilel WAS luis III 1851, at the expense of a
proper regard for the interests of the Re-
publican party. He was in sympathy with
the movement that had for its object the
defeat of Republican Organization and the
nomination of a Republican Electoral Tick
ct in that year at the Stanton Convep-
ton. He was in sympathy with the
scheme to take down that ticket. on the eve
OF the Presidential election. the object OF
which was to transfer the Republican vote
OF the State to the Readjusler Han
cock Electoral Ticket, that the Read
juster vote might be augmented at the
expense of Republican honor and integrity.
Had the proper and reasonable support and
encouragement, to which the Republicans
OF Virginia were entitled, been extended
to them the eleven electoral votes of the
State would have been cast for Garfield and
Arthur. and Republican supremacy been
almost assured in the succeeding State cleo
ton. The Republican has perfect right,
as free lance journal, to its own views of
expedency and party policy. This we do
INV fNNobiSh. Dub we w QuCDblOu Lille pro-
priety, the justice and the manliness, of
Its constant slurs and insults cast upon the
Virginia Republicans. Its editor had a
perfect right, as an American citizen, to
prefer that the Republicans of Virginia
should not, through their state Convention,
have nominated an electoral ticket in 1880,
and perfect right to prefer that the Re-
publican vote of Virginia should have been
cast for Hancock and English electors in
stead of Garfield and Arthur electors. He
had perfect right to prefer that the Lynch
burg Convention in 1881, should be pre-
vented, by whatever means, fair or foul,
from placing in the field Republican State
ticket. These things may find justification,
from Republican standpoint, by some
occult and mystic ratiocination of which
we, as Republicans, are not masters. We
will not complain about them because we
cannot penetrate the labarynths of the re-
filming political philosophy which must have
been the source of such conclusions, find
ing as they do no kindred relation. to the
SOIiAhOh ohOCl S1dbOlilS3 Ill CuC dlHulpy VI
legitimate cause and effect.
But there is one thing we have a right
to complain about, and that is the transparent
misstatement of fact contained in the Re-
publican of the 22d, designed to reflect I'M
favorably upon the Republicans of Vir-
ginia.
Referring to the condition of the Repub-
licans of Virginia, the Republican says -
1.-The party became so absolutely imbecile
that in 1877 it made no sign as State Or
ganization." And why was this so? From
tions of the Conservative party, under the
management of some of those who are now
leading the Readjuster faction, were of such
a mOnstrous and outrageous character that
all efforts to shake the Democratic entrench-
ments were hopeless, so long as clap-trap
appeals of NEGRO, carpet-bagger and seal
lawag' were made to nfame the pas
sions and drown the reason of the people.
Supplemented by the tissue tickets and bal
lot-box stutfing, this kind of party war
fare rendered Republican organization in
1877 worse than useless waste of labor and
time, and suggestedthe necessity of meet
ing device and strategy with device and
strategy. Hence as early as December,
1876, Immediately after the shameful con-
duct of the Conservatives in the Presiden-
tial canvass of that year, the Republicans
determined that there should be no excuse
for such appeals and such dishonorable
announced, following this. in the early
spring of 1877. that the Republicans would
not nominate State ticket. but would
force the debt issue before the people, and
thus compel division of the Conservative
strength upon that question, as well as an
arrest of the disgraceful exhibit made each
year of a defaultlng Treasury 10 the amount
of 500, 900 or 100000. A public meeting
was held in Staunton, by the farmers OF
Augusta county, in May succeeding-the
first movement of the kind in the State-in
which REIMBURSEMENT of the State debt
was demanded in accordance with equity
and right, and as modification of the unjust
exactions of the Funding B III of 1871. The
Convention of that year was then COM
; the debt question was the para
mount issue of discussion, and antagonizing
forces, formed out of the Conservative
party, contended for supremacy. The con-
test in the Convention was bitter, aggra-
waiting and exciting, Gen. Malone present.
ing the strongest numerical following, but
not large enough to secure his nomination.
Holiday, as the candidate of expediency to |
beat Maj, John w. Daniel. The strategy |
succeeded, but the golden opportunity was
of sweeping the State by an
overwhelming independent movement,
with Gen. Malone at its head. Had he
followed the advice of his friends at that
lime, and withdrawn from the Convention,
fifty thousand majority of the popular vote
would have attested the wisdom of the pol
cy the debt question would have been
ettled by that verdict, and Virginia re-
ieved of the harmful agitation which has
orn her very vitals from that time to this.
The basis of the REIMBURSEMENT proposed
n that canvass and that upon which read
was demanded, was substantially
he debt as formulated in the McCulloch
Bill, emitting the coupon feature, the syn
icate provision ard the non-taxable clause.
There was crushing expression of
pinion in that election against Bourbon
ule, and that element of the Conservative
arty, realizing the force of the lesson of the
erdict, at once directed its diplomacy and
elfish ingenuity to profit by it. Simulat-
ng a surrender, the BOurbons gradually
7ormed themselves, by concession and arti-
ce, into the control of the Legislature,
nd with the Governor in sympathy with
hem, seized the power the people had con- s
erred under different understanding. At
MS juncture, the Mozart Hall Readjuster ,
arty was born, and from that time to this 3
he war has been relentless between the
factions created out of the
Conservative party, resulting from the
;rategy of the Republicans. 9
There was no occa sion for the Republicans |
resume their organization until 1880, when
lie time had come to prepare for the Presi-