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Staunton Spectator: November 05, 1867 Go To Page : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

The Press Should Act in Concert
(Column 01)

Summary: Argues that the "Conservative" press of the state should agree on a single plan to defeat the proposed Constitution and then "act in perfect harmony in advocacy" of that policy. Currently the press is divided between trying to defeat the Constitution by a simple vote and, as the Spectator has advocated, by registering large numbers of white men who will then abstain from voting.

Full Text of Article:

We observe that the Charlottesville Chronicle and Fredericksburg Herald approve of the [UNCLEAR] we suggested last week of defeating the Radical plan of reconstruction, in its application to Va. by abstaining from voting, whereas the Dispatch and Enquirer disapprove and support the policy of trying to effect the same end by voting against the ratification of the Constitution.

Up to this time, no other Conservative papers that we have seen have expressed an opinion upon the subject at all. We know that it is not only desirable, but absolutely essential that all the Conservative presses in the State striving to accomplish the same object, should act in concert-they should all adopt the same policy, and there should be "a long pull, and a pull all together."

Whilst we are convinced that the weight of the argument preponderates in favor of the plan of not voting, yet if a majority of the press advocate the plan of voting, we think that those in favor of the former plan should not only cease to insist upon it, but should co operate with the majority in their plan, and should labor zealously to induce all to vote-though they believe than it is not as safe as the one they prefer-for a want of unanimity on the part of the Conservative press would ensure the success of the Radicals and the ratification of the Constitution.

On the contrary, if the majority of the conservative press in the State prefer the plan of not voting, those which prefer the opposite should cease to advocate it, and should co-operate with those which favor non-action.

It is all important that all the Conservative presses should act in perfect harmony in advocacy of identically the same policy. If the policy of trying to vote down the Constitution be agreed upon, then all should labor to ensure the largest vote possible, after securing the largest number of registered voters; but if the policy of not voting be adopted, all should endeavor to get as many white men and to register as possible, and then to prevent as many as possible from voting at all. Upon one question there can be no division of opinion and that is, that it is all important that every white man who has not registered, and who possesses the requisite qualifications, should be sure to do so as soon as the opportunity be presented.

An effectual system of organization having this object in view, should be at once adopted. There can be no excuse for the white man will fail to register, and who possesses the requisite qualifications to do so. He is an enemy to the liberties of his country, and should be so considered. He is a Radical at heart.

Impetus to Immigration
(Column 01)

Summary: Argues that, unless blacks "speedily awake to their own interests" and abandon their support of Radicals, "they will suffer 'woes unnumbered'" and will "disappear as the morning mist and the early dew," replaced by white laborers from the North.

Full Text of Article:

Heretofore, schemes for the promotion of immigration into the Southern States have been abortive because the great majority of the Southern people had not very strong motive for exchanging the laborers they had for others. The negroes have unwisely supplied such a motive by suffering themselves to be the [UNCLEAR] tools of the Radicals who ruthlessly trample upon the dearest rights of the Southern people who are the employers of the negroes. The negroes have unwittingly given an impetus to immigration which it would not, otherwise, have received. That they would be supplanted by white laborers, in the course of time, we have never doubted since the day they were emancipated, but, if they had not united themselves in solid phalanx in opposition to the whites, a long time would have elapsed before this would have occurred, and the process would have been so gradual as not to have produced much distress, but unless they speedily awake to a due sense of their own interests, and cease to allow themselves to be pitted, by their Radical advisers and leaders and tyrannical masters against the Southern people-the only friends they have-they will suffer "woes unnumbered"-they will be supplanted by foreign and Northern laborers, and "the places which once knew them will know them no more"-they will disappear as the morning mist and the early dew.

Resistance to Negro Domination
(Column 02)

Summary: Declares that "the negro shall not rule in this fair State designed by God to be the dominion of the highest type of the white race" and urges readers to treat the Convention "as a nullity and a mockery." The author also argues that "death is preferable to negro supremacy." "Revolution," he contends, "will be the inevitable result of an attempt upon the part of a Mongrel Convention to make a Hayti of Virginia."

Origin of Article: Richmond Enquirer and Examiner

Full Text of Article:

Like some rich and noble treasure ship, freighted with the renown or centuries of Caucasian domination, the merited wealth of historic glory and countless ingots of proud traditions, Virginia has been captured by black and mongrel buccaneers as desperate as ever cruised beneath the red flag of the "Spanish Main." While the pirates are gloating over the prize which they have won by fraud and the disfranchisement of our ablest men, we tell them in the name of the white men, not only of Virginia, but of the North, that the negro shall not rule in this fair State designed by God to be the dominion of the highest type of the white race.

We unfurl the standard of resistance to the wretched creatures who are soon to meet to complete the work of Africanizing Virginia, and tell them that there are no chains which they can forge in the shape of a mongrel organic law which can bind the giant limbs of the Old Dominion.

Firm in the conviction that God will protect the fight we now take the issue before the aroused and indignant North, and ask the triumphant Conservative masses, "Shall the land of Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Madison, Marshall, Monroe be made a negro Inferno more horrible than that visited by Dante and Virgil? Shall a negro dispense the mockery of justice where Marshall illumined the name of American jurisprudence? Shall some brutal black occupy the gubernatorial chair once adorned by Henry and Jefferson? And shall the backs like the frogs of Egypt, swarm in the most sacred places of the mother of States and of statesmen?

We call upon the people of this much traduced Commonwealth by conventions, primary meetings, resolutions, thorough organization speeches and public addresses, to prepare to treat the work of the proposed Convention as a nullity and a mockery. Death is preferable to negro supremacy, and revolution will be the inevitable result of an attempt upon the part of a Mongrel Convention to make a Hayti of Virginia. We desire the people of the State to treat the proposed Convention from the very outset as a monstrous and wicked farce. We desire them to ceaselessly proclaim to the North their loyalty to the laws and Constitution of the Union, but their determination to oppose to the death the elevation of the negro over the white man. Let this issue be speedily and most distinctly made. Unless the ancient spirit of the men, whose ancestors have ruled Virginia for more than two centuries is dead-unless the splendid valor which flamed forth in the van of battle from Boston to Yorktown during the Revolution of 1776. has become a mere phosphorescent light emitted by the bones of a decaying ancestry-unless all those heroes who made the name of Virginia the admiration of Christendom during the civil war, have turned to dust, and our very women have lost their noble enthusiasm.-this outrage shall not and cannot be perpetuated. The negro and his wretched parasites shall not rule this State.

The race which has made it famous and renowned, and which has filled the Senate and the army with great statesmen and warriors, shall not creep through life the helots of their late slaves, and hide their sorrows and dishonor in the grave. No Convention can be permitted thus to violate the relation of the two races in Virginia. and no organic law, framed by a mongrel minority, can impose the galling yoke of negro supremacy upon the white race of this State.

In the spirit of these declarations, the country will recognize the public sentiment in Virginia, and the North will sustain as in the sharp, well defined issue of "Virginia must be ruled by white men." "In hoc signo viaces." The war cry which toppled over Radicalism in Pennsylvania parlayed the same party in Ohio and which will soon deliver New York from the bondage of fanaticism, must strike a chord of sympathy when hurled by Virginians in the teeth of the Mongrel Convention which will soon attempt to Africanize this noble State.

Undismayed by the result of the late election, confident of the undeveloped strength of the Conservative party, assured of Northern sympathy, and outraged by the character of the delegates elected to the so-called Convention, we declare thus early our determined hostility to it. We ask from the press and people of Virginia a united, determined, enthusiastic resistance and defiance of this last attempt which will ever be made to Africanize the Old Dominion.

In view of the brutal lust for power manifested by the negro at the late elections, and of his objects and designs, the severest penalties which Congress could inflict, and the most protracted military rule under the harshest military despot, would be preferable to the control of public affairs by the negro and the renegades who have degraded themselves below the black.-Enquirer and Examiner.

[No Title]
(Column 02)

Summary: Argues that whites should discriminate between the "masses of Radical colored people" and "the comparatively few who deplore, oppose, and regret it, but who are powerless, at present, to prevent it."

Origin of Article: Alexandria Gazette

[No Title]
(Column 02)

Summary: Disparages the "recreant whites who disgraced the white blood in your veins" by voting for a Convention, telling them to "blacken your faces" and give their "daughters to the negroes embrace."

Origin of Article: Fredericksburg Herald

Full Text of Article:

Ah, ye recreant white, who disgraced the white blood in your veins on Tuesday, have you really decided that as for you black government is the beau ideal. If you have then blacken your faces, don't go about with a counterfeit white face, and black all lurking under the skin Go and deal, barter and trade, marry and be married, give your sons to the wenches and your daughters to the negroes embrace, and let miscegenation be complete. How dare you go into the bosom of your white families after having practiced outwardly as you did on Tuesday. If you were sincere, then your families should forever divorce themselves from your embrace. If you played the part of a hypocrite, repent! Repent!-Fredericksburg Herald.

Local News
(Column 01)

Summary: Local resident W. A. Burke was awarded five premiums at the Lexington Fair for the best plows and for his hay fork.
(Names in announcement: W. A. Burke)

Local News
(Column 01)

Summary: Edwin Taylor has returned from his European tour in better health, and may write about some of his experiences for the Spectator.
(Names in announcement: Edwin M. Taylor)

Marriages
(Column 03)

Summary: Lewis Wiseman and Catherine Harruff were married in Staunton on October 31 by Rev. Wm. E. Baker.
(Names in announcement: Rev. Wm. E. Baker, Lewis Wiseman, Catherine M. Harruff)

Marriages
(Column 03)

Summary: George Funk, of Indiana, and Barbara Grove, of Augusta, were married near Waynesboro on October 24 by Rev. W. R. Stringer.
(Names in announcement: Rev. W. R. Stringer, George Funk, Barbara Grove)

Marriages
(Column 03)

Summary: Sue Brown and W. H. Furry were married in Waynesboro on October 30 by Rev. W. R. Stringer.
(Names in announcement: Rev. W. R. Stringer, W. H. Furry, Sue F. Brown)

Marriages
(Column 03)

Summary: Cyrus Balsley and Carie Balsley were married at Sherando on October 31 by Rev. W. R. Stringer.
(Names in announcement: Rev. W. R. Stringer, Cyrus F. Balsley, Carie N. Balsley)

Marriages
(Column 03)

Summary: David Argenbright and Nannie Payne were married on October 10 by Rev. Thomas Preston.
(Names in announcement: Rev. Thos. L. Preston, David F. Argenbright, Nannie A. Payne)

Marriages
(Column 03)

Summary: Elizabeth Beard and James Beard were married on October 10 by Rev. Thomas Preston.
(Names in announcement: Rev. Thos. L. Preston, James E. Beard, Elizabeth Beard)

Marriages
(Column 03)

Summary: David Baily and Margaret Dull were married at the home of the bride's father near Arbor Hill on October 31 by Rev. J. W. Kiracofe.
(Names in announcement: Rev. J. W. Kiracofe, David M. Baily, Margaret C. P. Dull)

Marriages
(Column 03)

Summary: J. N. Dever and Julia Kincaid were married at Deerfield on October 17 by Rev. George Taylor.
(Names in announcement: Rev. George B. Taylor, J. N. Dever, Julia E. Kincaid)

Marriages
(Column 03)

Summary: Cornelia Stanton and William Matheny were married on October 24 by Rev. George Taylor.
(Names in announcement: George B. Taylor, Wm. M. Matheny, Cornelia Stanton)

Deaths
(Column 03)

Summary: G. H. and R. A. Harris lost two children to dysentery. William Thomas Harris, age 6, died on October 10 and Alice Jane Harris, age 4, died on October 26.
(Names in announcement: G. H. Harris, R. A. Harris, Alice Jane Harris, Wm. Thomas Harris)

Deaths
(Column 03)

Summary: Richard Dudley, the eldest son of Mary and Jacob Kunkle, died of diptheria on October 15. He was almost 12 years old. Richard was "an exception of a boy" and was "beloved by all who knew him."
(Names in announcement: Jacob Kunkle, Mary J. Kunkle, Richard Dudley Kunkle)

Negro Intolerance
(Column 02)

Summary: Reports that a black man who "had the manliness to vote 'the white man's ticket'" was attacked by a group of black men and argues that "all the savagery of their nature was aroused" by their "Radical tutors."

Origin of Article: Lynchburg Virginian

Conservative Reward
(Column 02)

Summary: The only black man who voted Conservative in King William county is being awarded a piece of land through a subscription by the white community. The author encourages rewarding those who display "their good sense and conservatism" and urges "every employer of negroes to turn adrift all who voted the Radical ticket."

Origin of Article: Richmond Enquirer