Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-03-04
The Virginia Gerrrmander.

Under the new Congressional appor-
tionment Virginia will gain one member
of Congress, and, as we have already
mentioned, the Readjusters have so
gerrymandered the State as to make sure,
they think and hope, of eight of the ten
Representatives from that State.
On the subject Of gerrymandering IN
general it is wisely said that it is COM
paratively new thing in American poll
tics, and wherever it has been resorted
to it has marked a decadence in politi-
cal morals, and is usually the forerunner
of corruption. This is very evident.
Any party which deliberately attempts
to group together sections of a
State in utter disregard of every
thing but to secure and maintain
its political ascendancy, shows, by this act
alone, that it is afraid to trust itself to the
sober judgment of the whole people, and
that it has to rely wholly on chicanerY
and trickery to preserve its dominance.
This is itself species of corruption, and
since a stream cannot rise higher than
its source, so from a corrupt source
nothing but evil can result. More than
this, the Virginia Readjuster faction, by
relying on gerrymandering for success,
plainly shows its true principles. If it
were based on any foundation which
might command the respect of the
people, it would not feel constrained to
resort to tricks of this nature to WIN, but
since its sole end and object is to make
sure of, and hold on to, the spOils, it
certainly has nothing elevating or digni-
fed in its composition, and the only re-
suit of its ascendancy must be to de-
grade and reflect discredit on the State so
unfortunate as to be suffering from Its
misrule.
Gerrymsndering, however, does not
always succeed. When Ohio was redis-
tricted after the census of 1860 the Re-
publicans tried it in that State. Yet at
the first election afterwards the Demo
Gratis carried fourteen of the nineteen
districts. while in the same State, in
1874, after a second Republican gerry
mander, thirteen of twenty districts
were Democratic. So it may be in
Virginia. The Readjusters concede that
two of the new districts of the
State - the Sixth and Eighth -
cannot, by any hocus pocus whatever,
be wrested from the Democrats, while in
the others their hopes of success rest
upon the vote of last fall for Daniel and
Cameron. 1t must be remembered, how
ever, that, at that time, many Democrats
either abstained from voting at all, and
many others voted for Readjusterism
solely because they desired to have the
vexed question of the State debt set
tied and removed from politics. 1t
is reasonable to expect that 3
large majority of this latter class
will in future return to their original
faith, and when it is further considered
that serious discussions over the spoils
have already arisen in the Readjuster
ranks; that the indications are that these
dissensions will grow still more serious,
and that the straight out Republican,
upon whom the Readjusters are mainly
dependent-are growing FESTIVE under
the snubbing they have received from
the coalition and the Federal administra-
ton, it really looks as if all the manipu-
lations and tricks to which the faction
can resort will be powerless to save it..
1t is probable that before the next
election the heterogeneous mass
of which it is c, imposed will
either have differed so materially among
themselves as to bring about disintegra-
ton of the coalition into its original ele-
ments, or the better class OF citizens,
whose personal interests are involved in
the welfare of the State, will become so
disgusted with its recklessness of princi-
pie as to abandon it. In either event, the
party will speedily find out that all its
efforts to maintain itself in power,
by the readjustment of the State debt,
the Supreme Court of Appeals, the
Congressional districts, and even the ed
vocational institutions of the State, will
prove fruitless and unavaiing.