Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-10-17
REASONS FOR LEAVING THE REPUB-
LICAN PARTY In 1880.

GIVEN BY A REPUBLICAN NOMINEE FOR
JUDGE IN NORTH CAROLINA.
The obnoxious legislation of the congress
that has just adjourned, has furnished sub
stantial reason for the Democrats who ever
left their party, to now rejoin it-indeed it
has been Of such character as to force the
intelligence and enterprise Of the South to
come together with one purpose. Hon.
Francis D. Winston prominent North
Carolina Republican, who was recently
nominated by that party for Judge of the
Circuit Court Of the Second District in
that State, is out in a ringing letter declin-
ing the nomination. He says:
''The tendencies of the Republican party
are such as to alarm every man who places
the permanent welfare Of his country above
temporary party advantage. The National
House OF Representatives, abandoning all
/ pretense to calm, wise and impartial deliber-
alton, has depressed free speech, free inquiry
and free discussion; has appointed the Speak
| er and the clerk permanent returning board
for the counting of voters who do not vote,
and has enacted legislation involving hun
dreds of millions of dollars without conde-
scending to justify or even excuse its oppres-
sion, and without allowing inquiry to be
justice or propriety The methods that have
prevailed in that body during the past ten
months belong rather to kpacked convention
of political partisans held in a corner grog-
gerry than to the highest deliberatiyea assembly
of free and intelligent nation. 1t is doubt
full whether the legislature Of any civilized
people on earth has transacted public business
in the year 1890 with SO little regard for the
rights OF speech and discussion, or for the
real interests of the people, as the present
Congress. 1t has abolished parliamentary
rights that were observed during the passion
and turmoil of civil war and the reconstruction
period and it has imposed taxes which not even
the necessity Of war required.
''New States have been admitted into the
Union with smaller population than one of
our Congressional districts; but the votes of
their Senators in the United States Congress
were thought necessary to establish the vic
selfish and Unsuitable oligarchy of millionaire
manufacturers.
''Sectionalism has been revived in its most
odious shape. Every Southern industry has
industries of the North. On the tie that binds
Southern cotton the tax has been trebled the
Irvine that binds Western wheat has been
almost freed from taXation, Southern Demo-
laborer of unjust burdens, while Western
Republican Senators vote to increase the un-
Just burden upon Southern labor Such is |
their idea of craftsmanship When asked to
explain the inconsistency of their votes, they
laugh in their sleeves, OF justify their extor-
ton by crying Rebel Government is be-
coming game of plumber and the methods |
of the men who control the Republican ma
jority are partly the methods Of highwaymen
and partly the methods of sneak thieves. A |
half-clad negro in the Southern cotton field )
is good pluiider for the millionaire philan- |
thropst who needs protection. Robin Hood |
was more humane, In their desire to Cypress
and plumber the Southern people they are will |
ing to keep in poverty and even to destroy the
and satire for such men to advocate a Force
bill for the benefit Of the negroi
''fhe leaders of the Republican party seem
to have abandoned the wise, liberal and pro-
Happily carried forward by Arthur and Cleve-
land. 1t required but little craftsmanship to
continue this policy and to give the entire
country period of material development and
Of progress in education, refinement and Gull