Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1891-04-07
Virginia Politics.

There seems to be chronic inability on
the part Of the Republicans Of the North
70 understand tho condition of politics IN
this State. We find, for example, 50 we'll
informed journal as the New York Times
stating without qualification that but for
the MISUNDERSTANDING between the lead
ers of the Republican party Virginia
would long ago have found a permanent
place in that party. But the truth is that
. tho victories which were gained IN
Virginia in 1879 and for few years
thereafter were gained under false
pretences. The Republican party mas
oueraded under the title of the Readjuster
party; and WILLIAM MALONE, its disguised
leader, figured in the State canvass OF 1873
as Democrat who had done and suffered
much for his party. Nay, even after he
had taken his seat in the United States
Senate in 1881, he claimed to be q better
Democrat than BEN. Hula decla-
ration which some of his friends tried to
explain away, Blu. which the public ac-
cepted at the time and still accepts as a
claim that he was a sound Democrat when
the Virginia Legislature elected him to the
United States Senate.
But for the debt question Virginia would
never have strayed away from the Demo-
cratic fold. Why, indeed, should she have
proved recreant to her duty at times when
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia.
Alabama, and all the rest of the southern
States were rolling up Democratic MAORI
ties by thousands and tens Of thousands?
There are, IN the very nature OF things.
good reasons why Virginians should not
Join hands with party which has in every
way proved to be hostile to the southern
people, and has in the Federal
courts, and in the national capital, and
wherever else il could be done, used the
powerful arm Of the Federal Government
to strike down every southern man and
every southern INTEREST," 1t has been well
said that whilst northern white men might
consistently be members of the Republican
party southern white men could not, be-
cause the antagonisms engendered by
The war between the States have
never been allowed by the Republicans to
die out, but have on the contrary been en-
ployed year after year in contests either
locni or national as q means Of arousing
the sectional and war prejudices of the
northern people and thus securing Re
publican triumphs at the ballot-box. I'm
auestionably the Republicans might have
gained permanent foothold in Virginia
within few years after the war ended
had they been patriotic enough and
wise enough to steer clear OF sec
tionalsm and to commend their party to
the favor of the southern people by taking
high ground and scorning to perpetuate
that party's existence by discreditable
means. But this is exactly the reverse of
the course which the Republicans did pur-
sue; for they have not only made war ever
since 1865 upon the southern people, but
upon the friends of the southern people.
They would not themselves be friendly
with us and would not permit the Demo-
Gratis of the North TO be.
Oh, no; Virginia is as reliably Demo-
cratic as are any of her southern sisters.
She, like them. recognizes the Democratic
party as being the only national party in
this country, or, in other words, as the only
patriotic party in this country. 1t would
be ungrateful and unnatural in her to
range herself under tho standards Of a
party which knows 40 South except one to
be plundered and otherwise wronged.
The remembrance of reconstruction days
makes il impossible for her to prove false
20 the Democratic party. The recollection
of the carpet-baggers and scalawags and
Nf lind nd
degree who infested the southern States in
those days negatives the New York Times's
assumption that Virginia is Democratic
only because Republican leaders ere
unwise.