Staunton Spectator

To the Voters of the Third Judicial Section.

The friends of Judge John W. Brockenbrough, who have known him long and well have heard with unfeigned surprise, that certain individuals who ought to know better, are industriously circulating through the section, that he has been brought out by the Whigs, and is to be run against Judge Samuels on party grounds.

The undersigned, members of the Democratic party, and who would be very far from sustaining any man for any office, who would consent to be run by the Whig party, or to further Whig purposes, consider it an act of common justice to Judge Brockenbrough to correct over their own names, so injurious and slanderous a report as the one above referred to. No man in the State has been a more uniform, firm and consistent Democrat than Judge Brockenbrough, in all things properly appertaining to Democracy. Brought up from his early boyhood under the teaching of the Roanes, the Ritchies, the Tuckers, the Parkers, and his own Democratic name, the Brockenbroughs, he has never in his life, in any party contest, given a Whig vote, but has always firmly and manfully borne up the banner of Democracy, and the more zealously in the darkest hours of our fortunes. On the present occasion Democrats and Whigs, have earnestly solicited him to offer his services to the State, and he has yielded to their wishes, not supposing that any person would undertake to make a party question of such an election. He remembered how earnestly the friends of Judicial reform had repelled, during the Convention canvass, and in the Convention, the arguments of their adversaries. that in Judicial elections by the people, party politics would never rule. He had seen the names of Dickinson and Sharkey quoted every where to prove that in such elections the people would have the wisdom to choose their best men without respect to party, and being a Democrat he offered himself without expecting any of his own party to vote for him because a Democrat, or any Whig to vote against him for the same cause, but hoping to have a fair race with his worthy competitor Judge Samuels on the naked single question of merit, and fitness for the office.

From our knowledge of Judge Brockenbrough & his opinions. we are well assured -he would not have consented to be run for a judicial office as the candidate of his own loved party and much less as the candidate of the Whig party. We think he would scorn to do the work of any party, in the high office for which he has been nominated; but would rather respond in the language of his official oath, to the noble sentiment of Judge Sharkey when questioned by partisans: I will decide every question that comes before me according to the Law and the Constitution, so help me God. Believing him to be such a man, and that in office he will deal out even handed justice to all men of all political parties; believing, him in the language of Jefferson, honest, capable, and a friend to the Constitution, we a portion of the Democratic party ask for his claims a fair consideration, and feel confidence enough in the wisdom and justice of the people of this section to believe they will receive a fair consideration in spite of all that party hacks can accomplish.

Judge Brockenbrough has been blessed with peculiar opportunities, within the last ten or twelve years of his life, to fit him for the high and important station to which we hope the people of this Section will elevate him. As Judge of the Federal Court for the Western District of Virginia, his naturally fine mind. previously well stored with legal learning, has been trained to calm Judicial investigation. We ardently wish that more of his Courts had been located in this Section, that the people might have had a more general opportunity of hearing and seeing him. We are sure that all would have agreed with us of Augusta, the only seat, within this Section of one of his Courts. that none within its limits would more adorn a seat on the Supreme bench of the State. In addition, the inadequacy of his salary, has compelled him for the last three or four years to convert the leisure of his long winter vacations into a laborious devotion to a Law School in Lexington. There he again became a Student of the Law, and his unremitting labours of preparation for his lectures and examinations, are testified by his unanimous classes, as an argument not only of his conscientious discharge of duty to his Students, but of his improved science in the legal profession. The near approach of the day of election, and the necessity of giving early publicity to this vindication of Judge Brockenbrough from the calumnies of his enemies, alone prevent a more numerous signature to this card. We feel perfect confidence that the day of election will give them a signal refutation by showing on his poll a decisive majority of Democratic votes of this and Rockbridge counties, where he and his principles are best known.

BENJ. CRAWFORD,
L. L. STEVENSON.
WILLIAM KYLE,
B. F. POINTS.
JON. BRANDEBURG,
JOHN C. GROVE,
JOHN C. KYLE.