Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1886-08-27
First d The Campaign
CAPT. BUMGARDNER ADDRESS,
Els THE PEOPLE OF HIGH
LAND.

Reported for the Staunt on VINDICAToR.l
For the benefit of other members of the
press, may give word of warning to the
reporters who may travel hereafter with
the Democratic nominee for Congress in
this district. If you have family depend
ing on your exertions don't let him drive.
No man can shake hands, talk tariff, JET
fersonian Democracy, and Blair bill with
people along the road and keep span OF
horses in the middle of it at the same
% time. It struck me after reaching the
Highland line that every man in that
county knew Capt. Bumgardner, and not
only knew him but was on the most famil-
lar terms with him. have never seen 1T
surpassed in my travels with candidates,
even with the irrepresslble John I. Har-
ris, whose acquaintance embraced the liv-
ing and the dead. After one or two mar
row escapes from going down into ravines
and creeks. took the reins, as I advise
any newspaper man who may travel with
Capt. Bumgardner in the canvass this side
of the Blue Ridge TODD. 1t is long
drive from Stanton to Monterey, but
with John Peer IS cosy little tavern for a
half way house, and the glorious views
that are presented to the eye after getting
into Highland county, it fully repays the
traveller. Except for the difference in
size, a court day at Monterey is pretty
much like our Augusta courts. The peo-
pie are the same sturdy, thrifty, sober,
well behaved people we see in our own
county.
THE SPEAKING.
I am not familiar with the numbers that
attend Highland court, but was told
that the crowd was about that which at
lends usually. Neither political party
/, had brought out many people. The Re-
publicans held their county convention to
send delegates to the convention to nomi-
nate their candidate for Congress, but L
hardly think from its size that it was by
any means the best they can do further on
when the campaign gets hot. The same
may be said Of the Democratic meeting,
though it was about twice as large. Mr..
Brennaman, the editor of the Highland
Recorder. who was present in the Repub-
lican meeting, showed an appreciated cour-
tesy to the Democrats by expediting its
business in order that our speaker might
have the court house.
Capt. Bumgardner took the platform at
/ O'Clock and was introduced by Hon. G.
P. Jones, member Of the State Senate.
Capt. Bumgardner said he spoke to a
Highland audience to-day, under, for him,
peculiar circumstances. In life in which
an active interest in politics had begun
early, and in which he had made many
speeches, to-day was the first time in his
career that he had addressed an audience
in the result of whose deliberations as af-
fecting himself he had any personal inter-
est. It was the first time he had ever had
an individual interest in the effect of his
speech. And the situationJ from which
this interest arose now, came about
through no individual effort of his own.
1t had been brought about by others, and
his fellow Democrats of Highland bad
been greatly responsible for 1t. 1t was for
the Democracy of Highland to see that
tie cause of the party did not suffer with
in their borders, and in this expectation
he knew he should not be disappointed.
He did not claim to be a man with at
tractive powers of speech, an expert in
fancy fights or funny stories, but he
should make it his object to place what he
had to say before them with the same
plalnness and directness that had always
been his custom in addressing juries. He
wonld 60 straight to the unadorned truth
of the matter and on that he would ask a
favorable verdict. The issue was the SIM
plest in the world-whether the district
should be represented in Congress by him.
self Or by a Republican, and whether Dem
ocratic Or Republican principles in gov
eminent should prevail.
Capt. Bumgardner followed this with
striking history of the mode and policy, in
and with which the Republican party had
welded the governmental powers with
which it found Itself invested at the close
of the civil war. During the existence of
= the war it had secured the governments of
some of the Southern States such as West
Virginia. Missouri and Tennessee, by mill
itary occupation, and so changed their
constitutions as to absolutely disfranchise
every man who was not in favor of its
measures. They then deemed those abso-
lutely secure, and by the acts of Recon-
struction essayed to bring all the rest into
similar bondage. They were successful in
who owed her deliverance to that great
soldier, U. s. Grant. Bursting for mo-
ment the wythes with which the RepubIi-
can party were seeking to bind him,
Grant let the courage and heroism and
sense of fair play that lay in his heart ex-
ercise themselves. and to his efforts Virgin
ia owed her deliverance from the fate of her
sister States. In that day the Repu bican
party in the Union was Supreme. And it is
not to be wondered at. There were enlisted
in its behalf the prejudice, the passion,
the sentiment and the cupidity of the
Northern people. The abolition senti-
ment was with it. the prejudice against
the reserved sovereignty of the States and
those who upheld it was with it; the mon
ey of the country made out of the war by
its great contracts and its war tariff was
with it; the gratitude Of the country for
the preservation OF the Union was with it
all in the hands Of the leaders of the Re-
publican party to be used and abused ex-
clusivelyefor enriching and prolonging the
life and power Of the party. 1t was drunk
with power. It was not surprising that
such q party should attempt anything. It
passed laws that the Supreme Court had
to declare unconstitutional; it rioted in