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Staunton Vindicator: November 23, 1860 Go To Page : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

[No Title]
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Summary: Rev. Taylor raised $1,000 from Staunton to help rebuild Alleghany College.
(Names in announcement: Rev. George Taylor)

[No Title]
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Summary: Capt. Harman and W. B. Snapp have bought the interest of M. G. Harman and G. K. Snapp in the local distillery.
(Names in announcement: Capt. J.A. Harman, W.A. Snapp, Esq. M.G. Harman, Esq. G.K. Snapp)

[No Title]
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Summary: Deer meat is in great supply in Staunton.

[No Title]
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Summary: Benjamin Bagby and Richard Johnson have been given the job of widening Lewis Creek to prevent Staunton from flooding again.
(Names in announcement: Esq. Benjamin Bagby, Richard Johnson)

The Stock Market
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Summary: The stock market is plummeting downward.

Origin of Article: New York Evening Post

Spontaneous Combustion
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Summary: Article about a field in Wisconsin that burst into flame in several places spontaneously.

Origin of Article: Taylor Falls Reporter

[No Title]
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Summary: Correction of last week's claim that New York, Indiana and Illinois have laws restricting recapture of Fugitive Slaves.

[No Title]
(Column 1)

Summary: George Crawford purchased the property of Adam Link for $7,000.
(Names in announcement: Esq. Adam Link, Esq. George W. Crawford)

The Crisis--National Convention
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Summary: Calls for a National Convention and not a Southern Convention in the interests of promoting Union and not sectionalism. Plays up the checks on Lincoln's ability to harm the South.

Full Text of Article:

The Crisis--National Convention.

That impulsive, mercurial sentiment that responds to sectional passion, regardless of consequences, seems to have taken possession of the leading Breckinridge papers of the State. Thoughtless and indifferent to the grave questions of which the present canvass is pregnant, they are rushing blindly into the very jaws of destruction, and suggesting a scheme that must inevitably "precipitate" a revolution in our political system, and blot us from the roll of nations as the freest and best governed people in the world. Hardly had the lightning flashed through the country the intelligence of the revolutionary movements of S. Carolina, before the metropolitan Breckinridge press, backed by the Alexandria Sentinel and Lynchburg Republican, burthen their columns with clamorous appeals for a "Southern Convention," apparently ignoring the fact that we are part of the whole confederacy, as well North as South; and regardless of the important consideration that our cause of complaint is against the North, and not the South. It seems patent to us, that a just ambition to avert the calamity of dissolution; to allay the nervous excitement incident to the election of a sectional President, and adjust the difficulties which reckless and fanatical men have thrust upon us, would have suggested the expediency of a National Convention to cure sectional diseases, rather than a sectional Convention to inflame sectional passions, brood over sectional wrongs, and estrange and embitter the feelings of the parties to the federal compact. He is a careless and superficial thinker who sees in the election of Abraham Lincoln a verdict of the American people in favor of the doctrine of the platform upon which he was elected. It is true, that through the folly and divisions of the conservative element at the North, Mr. Lincoln received a majority of the electoral votes of all the States, and by virtue thereof becomes in name the President of the United States. It is merely in name, for he goes to the White House with the moral power of less than one-third of the people to back him; with the Senate, House of Representatives, and Federal Judiciary--all the checks provided by the Constitution--against him, and as utterly powerless to do harm as he would have been had he remained at his quiet home in Springfield.

Viewing all the circumstances, therefore, attending the election of Mr. Lincoln, and calmly surveying the facts as they are presented to us, we can see no just reasons for a Southern Convention, until the more rational and statesmanlike policy of a National Convention has failed to accomplish the desired end. A Southern Convention would be utterly powerless to remove any one of the causes of complaint, and could result in nothing else than an imagined extenuation of our wrongs, driving reason from our deliberations, and substituting therefor inflamed passions. The great and crowning error of the Virginia delegation at Charleston--an error the resultant of which was the disruption of the Democratic party, the election of Lincoln, and the imperiling of the Union--was the appointment of a delegate to meet similar delegates from the Southern States in consultation. That was the first step towards the division that afterwards took place. Had the conference been national--had there been an honest desire to adjust the differences of opinion that existed, and one paramount sentiment, and that the defeat of the Black Republican party, the Democracy this day would have the President elect.

It is now proposed to pursue a like suicidal, contracted and narrow-minded policy, by holding a Southern Convention instead of a National Convention. We are well convinced that the intelligent masses are opposed to any such folly. We know they are in this section. Believing that South Carolina has recklessly and madly initiated steps of disunion, regardless not only of the sentiments, but the interests of the border States, they feel called upon, as patriots devoted to a Constitutional Union, to speak out against any movement that can be construed as endorsing her course, and to once again appeal to that stern sense of virtue and honor, which in troublous times gone by made "Virginia the break-water to sectionalism, to step forward to pour oil upon the maddened waters.

As fully carrying out this idea, and as indicating a step commensurate with the vast interests involved, the following plan suggested by Gov. Letcher in his inaugural address last January, seems the most appropriate and feasible:

"The only mode, therefore, of remedying the evil, that occurs to me, under the Constitution, is provided in the fifth article thereof. Summon a Convention of all the States, that a full and free conference may be had between the representatives of the people, elected for this purpose, and thus ascertain whether the questions in controversy cannot be settled upon some basis mutually satisfactory to both sections. If such a Convention shall assemble, and after full and free consultation and comparison of opinions, they shall find that the difference between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States are irreconcilable, let them consider the question of a peaceful separation, and the adjustment of all questions relating to the disposition of the common property between the two sections. If they can be reconciled, let them adjust the terms, and give them such sanction as will render them effective.

"I suggest, therefore, that you adopt resolutions in favor of the call of such a Convention, and appeal to the Legislatures of the several States to unite in the application proposed to be made in Congress, in pursuance of the provisions of the article aforesaid. If the non-slaveholding States shall fail or refuse to unite in the application, such failure or refusal will furnish conclusive evidence of a determination on their part to keep up the agitation, and to continue their aggressions upon us. If the Convention shall meet, and the questions cannot be satisfactorily adjusted, the people of the South will clearly understand what they are to expect in the future."

Should this plan fail--should Northern fanaticism rise superior to Northern reason and patriotism--should they close their eyes to the fearful consequences, to them more especially, which must follow in the wake of disunion--then, conscious of having discharged our duty to our country--to the memory of the past and the hopes of the future,--we can calmly, and like men sustained in the right, proudly throw the responsibility where it properly belongs. We have no hosannahs to shout to the Union, nor do we mean to be driven to an extreme under the influence of the siren song for Southern rights, as understood by the Cotton States. We will never consent that South Carolina and Alabama shall arrange the programme by which the border States must leave the Union. If there can be no adjustment under the plan suggested by Gov. Letcher, still we are opposed to a Southern Convention. In that event, we shall favor a border State Convention. We have no idea of being "hitched" to the Cotton States upon just such terms as they may prescribe. We shall advocate a Convention of the Border States, and urge that they lay down the terms upon which they are willing to go into a Southern Confederacy--especially stipulating against the re-opening of the African Slave trade, and all "entangling alliances" with foreign powers.

But we are well convinced that a Convention of all the States of the Union, where we could meet the North face to face, and discuss the questions at issue, would be prolific of good, and quite probably remove all just cause of embittered feeling and sectional excitement and crimination.

We trust the press of the State will freely discuss the policy of the two suggestions--a National and a Southern Convention--give healthy direction to the popular mind, and thus enable our legislators, in January next, to reflect in their action the sentiments of their constituents. We are satisfied that it only requires the thoughts of the people to be brought to bear upon the idea, and they will, without division, discard, as unworthy the magnitude of the occasion, the contracted and fanatical idea of a Southern Convention, until at least the more rational remedies for the ills we bear have been exhausted.

Our Position
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Summary: The Vindicator favors holding a National Convention to resolve the sectional differences.

Baltimore Conference
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Summary: The annual Baltimore Convention of the M. E. Church will be held in Staunton in March. The question of separation from the General Convention will no doubt be addressed.

Where are our Statesmen?
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Summary: Editorial asking why no Virginia state leaders have come forward to offer a solution to the present problems.

Full Text of Article:

Where are our Statesmen?

In these dark hours of our national existence, when political throes are shaking the fundamental law of the country--when the passions of sections are erupting the groundwork of the government, and spreading the fiery lava of sectional animosity and hatred broadcast over the land, unsettling commerce, depreciating property, stagnating every channel of trade, and sending dismay and painful forebodings to the firesides of the timid, where is the statesman of Virginia to come forward and open up some way of deliverance? Echo answers, where? The press, with a puerility that is really disgusting, is furnishing ailment for excited passion, never aspiring to the dignity of grappling and digesting a comprehensive idea.--Conducted, with a few exceptions, by men who could never reach a higher distinction in any other profession than that of an eleventh-rate lawyer, or third-rate calico vender, they have succeeded, by the aid of a few store-box and pot-house politicians, in raising a storm that utterly bewilders them, and which leaves them without compass or rudder to guide the vessel they have launched. The criminal ignorance or imbecility of the men who have brought about this fearful state of affairs can only properly be atoned for upon the gallows.

But where are our statesmen? Not a man of prominence in the State, save Governor Letcher, has come forward with any suggestion looking to a solution of the difficulties that now environ us. Hunter, fearful that he may not strike the current, awaits the development of the opinions and plans of everyone else, before he will venture to present to the nation any devisement by which our country may be saved from the impending ruin. He, of all others, should come forward and endeavor to direct the storm, for it was the folly of his shallow-pated followers that created it. Mason, too dull to emit anything original and too soporific to play the part of an ingenious plagiarist, amuses himself in the luxurious and dreamy delights of bedizening milk punch and apply-toddy, while the very citadel of liberty is trembling and quaking under the shock of the attacks of reckless fanatics. Wise, that intellectual comet of the age, throwing himself, Achilles-like, stubbornly into the bosom of Princess Anne, ventures no further than to organize his Minute men, apparently unmindful of the duty he owes his State and the country, and forgetful that Princess Anne is neither the State or the Union.

The press, incapable of suggesting an idea, and only equal to the task of adding fuel to the flame, with no power to suppress it, and our Senators and Congressmen apathetic and indifferent, Virginia of 1860 presents a painful and humiliating contrast to the Virginia of other days. We shall look for some comprehensive plan from Governor Letcher in his message to the extra session of the Legislature. We discover in his inaugural address the true idea on which to base action. We trust he will again recommend it, and elaborate the propositions presented.

Pacific Republic
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Summary: Discussion of the possibility of formation of a Pacific Republic made up of Western States.

A Dish of Pathos and Consistency
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Summary: Looks forward to the coming of disunion and war.

Origin of Article: Shenandoah "Spirit of Democracy"

Editorial Comment: The Vindicator disagrees with this Breckinridge paper.

Suspension of Specie Payment
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Summary: The Farmer's Bank of Richmond has suspended specie payments until the country settles down, and it recommends that other banks in the state do the same.

Western Lunatic Asylum
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Summary: List of newly appointed Board of Directors for the Western Lunatic Asylum.
(Names in announcement: Kenton Harper, Thomas Michie, Jacob Baylor, M.G. Harman, S.B. Browe, A. Koiner, John A. Harman, H.M. Bell, John D. Imboden)

Gen. Harper's Resolutions
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Summary: Speech by Gen. Harper on the secession question.
(Names in announcement: Gen. Harper)

Augusta County Union Meeting
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Summary: A transcript of the events at a meeting of those who support the Union.
(Names in announcement: Stuart, John L. Peyton, Hugh W. Sheffey, G.M. CochranJr., Col. J.B. Baldwin, Col. G. Baylor, Capt. J.D. Imboden, Joseph A. Waddell, John L. Peyton, Gen. Kenton Harper, G.B. Stuart, Robert Guy, Benjamin Crawford, Hon. Alex H.H. Stuart, John McCue, T.J. Michie, John B. Watts)

Trailer: Alex H. H. Stuart, Ch'n. John L. Peyton, Sec'y.

The Veto in Virginia
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Summary: The final election returns for Virginia.

Origin of Article: Richmond Whig

[No Title]
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Summary: The people responsible for the rescuing of a fugitive slave in Chicago have been indicted for violating the Fugitive Slave law.

[No Title]
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Summary: Excerpt from a speech by Lincoln advocating brotherhood.

Married
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Summary: Married on November 8.
(Names in announcement: Rev. D.W. Arnold, Andrew J. Sillings, Mary E. Donaghe)

Married
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Summary: Married on November 15.
(Names in announcement: Rev. D.W. Arnold, Samuel W. Quick, Margaret J. Beard)