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Staunton Vindicator: December 7, 1866 Go To Page : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

Plain Facts for Plain People
(Column 5)

Summary: Written by a "plain man," the article purports to identify the concerns of everyday Americans. Of particular interest, he contends, is the controversy over black or "Impartial Suffrage."

Origin of Article: Marion Democrat

Full Text of Article:

Impartial Suffrage" is the only new name which the Negro Kissers have given to what plain men, in a plain way, call niggers votin'. "Impartial Suffrage" sounds better than nigger suffrage, but it don't change the nature of the thing. You may call a sawbuck a horse fiddle, if you please; but it is the same double X with a transverse bar, and makes the same discordant noise that it did before. Call a nigger wench the "Rose of Allendale," and she is no lovelier than when you call her Dinah. Just so it is with Impartial Suffrage. It means to let a nigger vote, who don't know his A. B. C.'s; it means to give him the same voice in administering the Government that the smartest and most learned white man has; and none but a fool or a traitor would favor such a scheme as thatn. I ain't much in favor of Impartial Suffrage myself. Too many ornry cusses vote now, that don't know what they are doin' when they give their vote. If this wasn't so, the people would never have put their foot in it so badly as to vote war, conscription, and everlastin' taxation, high prices, and poverty on themselves. But there's one "Impartial" I go for. I go for Impartial Taxation. I'm tired seein old Hunks strutiin' about like a turkey gobbler, with his fifty thousand dollars in hand which don't pay any tax, while all the poor men and poor women in the country are taxed on all the property they have, and work their very lives out to raise money topay these taxes. I'm tired of that. I would rather repudiate the whole concern than to put up with this sort of thing any longer. The debt ain't honest any how. Three-forths of it was made up of stealings that went into the pockets of Yankee manufacturers, and contractors. It was paid for condemned guns, and shoddy blankets, and wooden soled shoes, and hte rest went into the pockets of thieving quarter-masters and defaulting paymasters.--That's what's the matter. But even if the principle must be paid, and if the bondholders aintt to be taxed, I've been calculatin', and I make out, one way and another, puttin' the whole together, these shaves get abot twenty-four per cent. You see it comes in this way! A great deal of this debt was made when a gold dollar was worth three paper dollars. A fellow had ten thousand dollars in gold. he would buy for this $30,000 in Government bonds, on which he gets 6 percent in gold. Six per cent in gold is worth to-day eight per cent in paper, eight per cent on $30,000 amounts to $2,400. this is the annual interest which the holder gets on his original investment of $10,000. In other words, we ar now, as a matter of fact, paying twenty-four per cent on a debt which is three-fourths a fraud! I don't think we can do a devil of a sight better without Imperial Taxation. I may be wrong; but that's the way I look at it; and, since Andy Johnson's been President, its pretty generally admitted that every man has a right to his own opinion.

There's a fellow over in England by the name of John Bright--a sort of John Bull Josh Giddings,--who wants Impartial Suffrage for the coal-heavers, and stevedores, and navies, and sich like, who have no more business with a vote than a child has with one of Colt's Revolvers, and all the Black Republicans in America are hurrahing for John Bright! This looks "Impartial," too--don't it? When these very same fellows who are dyin' to see votes given to men who were never entitled to vote and not fit fer it, deny it to the intelligent, brave, and noble men of the South, whose votes, and wisdom, and patriotism, in conjunction with the same attributes in the North before the days of Black Republicanism, made this the most powerful and glorious government on earth! I go for Impartiality of old genuine sort; but this Black Republican Impartiality is bogus, and I don't want anything whatsoever to do with it. That's so. I'm a plain man, and say what I think in a plain way.--Marion Democrat

Message of the President of the United States to the two Houses of Congress at the Commencement of the Second Session.
(Column 1)

Summary: Contains a transcript of President Johnson's Second Annual Address.

Local Items--Circuit Court
(Column 1)

Summary: The following are the proceedings of the Circuit Court since our last issue: T. G. Stout vs. G. C. Robertson, T. N. Stout & Co. vs. same, upon bond in Confederate times. Cases submitted, not yet decided. Bastable & Hunton for &c. vs. R. G. Glendy and others, action of bond with collateral conditions. Demurrer to declaration argued and sustained by the Court. Judgement for the defendants. R. J. Hope vs. Arch. Brock. Verdict in favor of plaintiff. Jas. Walker vs. John Christain. The Jury did not agree and were discharged. In this case Jas. Walker is suing John Christian as the agent of Major Tate, who was an officer of the Confederate Government. The case was argued by Stuart and Fultz for Plaintiff, and Christian, Michie, and Bumgardner, for Defendant. Alex Walker vs. John Christian. This is a case of a similar character to the one last mentioned. A special jury was impaneled and decided in favor of defendant.
(Names in announcement: T. G. Stout, T. N. Stout, Bastable, G. C. Robertson, Hunton, R. G. Glendy, R. J. Hope, Arch. Brock, Jas. Walker, John Christain, Major Tate, Stuart, Fultz, Christian, Michie, Bumgardner, Alex Walker)

[No Title]
(Column 1)

Summary: At the last meeting of the Staunton Lyceum, members debated the merits of "immigrant and free negro labor" before a large crowd. The vote was decided in favor of maintaining black laborers.

Origin of Article: Local Items

Local Items
(Column 1)

Summary: Announces that the Freight Depot in Staunton has been completed, and is now ready to receive freight forwarded by the Central Railroad."

Local Items--Radical Jubilee in Washington--A Motley Crowd--The Temper of the Ultraists
(Column 1)

Summary: Reports that more than half of the attendees at a reception for Republican congressmen were black.

Negro Suffrage in the Alabama Legislature
(Column 2)

Summary: Reports that a bill was introduced in the Alabama Legislature to alter the constitution and grant conditional suffrage rights to freedmen. According to the bill, to be eligible to vote, blacks, as well as whites, would have to possess property valued at two hundred dollars or more, be able to read the federal and state constitutions, and "write a legible hand."

Died
(Column 2)

Summary: On Oct. 16. Nancy Taylor, wife of William Taylor, of New Port, Augusta, died. She was 70 years old.
(Names in announcement: Nancy Taylor, William Taylor)