Search the Newspapers Browse Newspapers by Date Articles Indexed by Topic About the Newspapers Valley of the Shadow Home

Staunton Spectator: March 20, 1866 Go To Page : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

[No Title]
(Column 06)

Summary: "Snooks" offers an update on "two Yankee Dutch worthies" who were acquitted in Augusta courts last November and have been involved in a variety of illegal activities ever since.
(Names in announcement: Capt. Hottle, F. Scheffer, Judge Thompson, J. Augustus Fischer, J. Kuhn)

Trailer: Snooks

Home Industry
(Column 01)

Summary: Argues that Southerners should rely less on Northern manufactures.

Full Text of Article:

As we walk along the streets we see in all the stores and shops dozens of corn brooms which are brought here for sale. This should not be the case. We live in a country admirably adapted to the growth of broom corn, and with an abundance of timber to make the handles.--Cannot some enterprising citizen establish a broom-factory in our town? It would give employment to a number of persons who need it, and keep a great deal of money among us which would otherwise be sent abroad.

The true secret of prosperity is to make every thing we can at home, and buy as little as we can abroad.

Many other occupations might be found which would yield profitable employment to capital and labour.

We have two large foundries now in a process of erection which will furnish the means of subsistence to a hundred or more people. Let us not confine ourselves to this department of industry. Keep the ball in motion and develop home resources.

Those countries flourish most which give a concrete form to labor, and sell manufactured goods instead of the raw material.

We have fine water-power around the town. It is a reproach to our enterprise to see it unemployed. Why not re-build the woollen factory, or substitute in its place some other useful machinery?

While we all go for re-constructing the Union, we must not forget that it is our duty also to re-construct our labor system, and re-establish our prosperity. We certainly cannot effect this latter object without the exhibition of industry and enterprise. We must sell more than we buy, and we must manage to incorporate as much labour as we can into the articles sold.

New England had the sagacity to see that she could not compete successfully with the fertile South and West in agriculture, and hence she betook herself to manufactures. We are somewhat (though in a less degree) in the same situation, and we would act wisely to follow her example in devoting a large part of our labour to mechanical pursuits.

Who will start the broom factory?

Disfranchisement of the South
(Column 02)

Summary: Argues that President Johnson should issue a proclamation of general amnesty, circumventing the "Radicals'" cries of "'disloyalty'" among Southerners.

Full Text of Article:

In the House of Representatives, Mr. Shellabarger of Ohio, offered a resolution, which was agreed to "directing the Judiciary Committee to inquire and report to the House on the constitutionality and prosperity of providing by law that no person who is disloyal to the Government of the United States, and who has voluntarily engaged in rebellion against such Government, shall be entitled to exercise the right of an elector in any State, or to hold office under such Government during such disloyalty; also, by law, for persons who have so engaged in such rebellion being admitted to exercise such elective franchise on proof of loyalty to the Government."

This resolution, says the N. Y. News, is in the spirit of many others that have preceded it, aiming to legislate a legitimate authority out of the hands of the President, and to render the Southern people dependent upon the will of the Radicals in Congress for the exercise of their rights as American citizens. It is about time that the question should be determined whether a faction having numerical supremacy in the National Legislature can dictate at their caprice what shall be the political status of States and individuals, that were born to Republicanism and inherited the inalienable rights of freemen. If self-government is a privilege to be accorded or to be withheld at the pleasure of a majority in Congress, there is nothing definite nor certain in our political system. Let is be established that Congress has the power to take away elective franchise from those who fail to adopt the doctrines of the dominant party, and the worst form of despotism or anarchy takes the place of our boasted Republicanism. We admit that those who engaged in armed hostility to the Federal Government may be brought to trial before the tribunal empowered by the Constitution to pronounce upon such offences: and if proven guilty, there may, in a strict letter of the law, be some kind of barbarous and sanguinary justice in making them pay the forfeit as written in the statutes. But no law, no sentiment expressed or intimated in the Constitution no acknowledged in our form of government gives to Congress an authority to snatch the elective franchise from the hands of an American citizen.

It is time that the word "disloyal," that is so often used in these Radical resolutions, should be dropped from the parliamentary vocabulary. It has no present application to any class of our people unless it be to the demagogues who are continually mouthing it to carry their point against their Southern countrymen. But the surest way to compel the Radicals to accept the fact of Southern "loyalty" is for the President to proclaim a general amnesty. His right to do so, under the Constitution, cannot be questioned, and the present moment is most opportune for exercise of such an act of clemency.--It will, of itself, restore the Southern people to all their civil attributes, and will silence the revolutionary crew who are incessantly p[unclear] of disloyalty in the very face of abundant testimony to complete submission to the Federal authority. That is the simplest way to settle the issue, and we appeal to the Executive to lose no time in his application of so sovereign a remedy.

Local News--Post Office Appointments
(Column 01)

Summary: A list of post office appointments in Augusta and Rockbridge counties.
(Names in announcement: Elizabeth Blakemore, James Joseph, James Byers)

Local News
(Column 01)

Summary: Reports that town authorities in Staunton are removing "all filth and dirt from the streets" in an effort to prevent a cholera outbreak in the spring.

Local News--Broke Jail
(Column 01)

Summary: John Maupin, who stole horses from a number of Augusta residents, has escaped from jail in Albemarle County.
(Names in announcement: John Maupin)

Local News--Bibles and Testaments
(Column 01)

Summary: Reports that a "Committee for the circulation of the Scriptures in Staunton and vicinity" has formed and will give Bibles to those individuals who are unable to afford them.
(Names in announcement: John Wayt)

Marriages
(Column 02)

Summary: Robert Dunlap and Amelia Mish were married on March 8 by Rev R. C. Walker.
(Names in announcement: Robert Dunlap, Amelia Mish, Rev. R. C. Walker)

Marriages
(Column 02)

Summary: Agnes Atkinson and Charles Young were married on March 8 by Rev. J. M. Latane.
(Names in announcement: Lieut. Charles Young, Agnes Atkinson, Roger Atkinson, Dr. B. M. Atkinson, Rev. J. M. Latane)

Deaths
(Column 02)

Summary: Mary Kemelle Ast died on March 17. She was 2 years and 4 days old.
(Names in announcement: Mary Ast, William Ast, Rose Ast)

Marriages
(Column 02)

Summary: William Hansford died suddenly on March 11. He was 3.
(Names in announcement: William Hansford, Samuel Hansford, Eliza Coleman, James McComb)

To the Voters of the Town of Staunton
(Column 02)

Summary: Argues that voters should elect the most qualified men in the upcoming municipal elections. Even though those men would not want the positions, the author argues, they would serve if elected.

Trailer: Hard Times

[No Title]
(Column 02)

Summary: Encourages farmers to attend an upcoming meeting in Churchville on March 29. The author argues that "there never was a time in the history of our State when combined and associated efforts were more essential to the interests of agriculture than the present."

Trailer: Many Farmers

[No Title]
(Column 03)

Summary: Decries a recent ruling by the local provost marshal relating to a tussle at the American Hotel as evidence that "we are yet under the heel of petty tyranny."
(Names in announcement: Judge Thompson, James Chandler, Daniel Chandler, Plunkett O'Ferrall)

Trailer: Americus

The Public Debt
(Column 03)

Summary: Reports that the aggregate debt of the U. S. government on March 1 was $2,711,850,000.22.