Wheeling Times And Advertiser

THE LATE ELECTION.

The Richmond Enquirer, having received complete returns of the late election, proclaims to the world "a glorious victory"—and, feeling doubtful, as it well may do, of its claims to credence, in the face of the facts which falsify its boast, it copies paragraphs from Loco-foco papers published in distant States, from Connecticut to Ohio, penned in the like exalting strains, but most of them written, unfortunately for the copyist, before the actual results were known by those who wrote them. Verily, they are thankful for small favors! With a majority in the Legislature reduced from 44 to 24.—and with three Whig members of Congress elected under an iniquitous Apportionment Law which designed to give them only one, and three others defeated, one by 5, another (fraudulently) by 20, and a third by 33 votes,—they must have a singular idea of the meaning of language, or they must have anticipated that their misdeeds and sins would rouse the people to "cast them out," who deem such a result a "glorious victory."

What, pray, would they regard an inglorious defeat?

But our object, in referring to this matter now, is not to dispute about a matter so unimportant. The facts are before the people, and they can judge for themselves with what aid of newspaper boasts, to which side the real, and to which the seeming victory belongs. We merely design to show the unfairness of the Enquirer, and to repel the calumnies, which it has not the hardihood to utter, but which nevertheless, by copying, it has endeavored to endorse. The Enquirer transfers to its columns the following article:

From the Washington Globe.

This is the first time the Democrats have obtained a majority in the Legislature for many years, except last year when the Whigs said they lost the majority by "general apathy." The victory now obtained by the Democrats is eminently the most glorious one ever achieved in this State, when we take into consideration the circumstances under which it was won. The Whigs obtained the ascendency in the State many years ago, by projecting grand schemes of internal improvements, and by paying out the borrowed money on them. They made friends both by laying out the lines of internal improvements, and by paying out the borrowed money on them.—When they "ran the thing so through the ground" that they could not borrow money to prosecute the works, nor even obtain money to pay the interest on that which they had borrowed, then they permitted the Democrats to get a majority in the Legislature and to suffer, by raising the taxes to pay the debts of the State incurred by the Whigs. The Democrats, regardless of the odium which attaches to taxing the people, met the crisis like men, by laying a tax sufficient to redeem or preserve the honor of the State. The law was passed just before the late election, and there was not time to give it general circulation before the people were called upon to vote. The Whigs took advantage of this, and went among the people and most misrepresented the law entirely.

We will state one misrepresentation which they made, vouched for to us by a leading and worthy member of the Methodist Church. The tax on horses has been twelve and a half cents for many years past. The last Legislature raised the tax on horses to fourteen cents a head; thereby increasing it only one cent and a half. The Whigs told the people that the tax on horses had been increased fourteen cents a head. Many Democrats believed them, and voted the Whig ticket, or did not vote at all."

We have never seen a greater number of glaring misstatements embodied in the same space—those puerile, it may be, upon the ignorance of the Globe, though the Enquirer, cognizant as it is of the facts, cannot avail itself of that plea. Does not the Enquirer know it to be untrue, that "the whigs obtained the ascendency in the State many years ago, by projecting grand schemes of internal improvement, and by paying out the borrowed money on them?" Does not the Enquirer know that the internal improvement policy, never was a party question at all, and that, so far from giving strength to its advocates, except in particular localities, such as democratic "Little Tennessee," and the Northwestern section of the State, in which there is also a decided loco foco preponderance, its advocates always found it difficult to sustain themselves at home, even on some of the very lines of improvement, by laying out which, and by paying out the borrowed money on them, the whigs are said to have made friends!' Does it not know that Joseph C. Watkins, who, while he was in the State, was the great bell wether of the Loco foco flock, and James McDowell, now the loco foko governor of the Commonwealth, were the most conspicuous and influential leaders of the internal improvement party? Is the Editor of the Enquirer oblivious of the fact that he, as much as any other individual in the State, contributed to excite and stimulate the fever that raged in Virginia on that subject—and that, so late as 1833, he urged the Legislature to authorize one of his London Correspondents (supposed to be no less a personage than Andrew Stevenson, then our Minister at that Court, who generously offered his services for that purpose,) to borrow ten millions of dollars to be applied to the prosecution of favorite schemes of improvement, then before the Legislature? Does not the Enquirer know, that the western portion of the State, being more interested in these schemes than their Eastern, their principal support was derived from that quarter, which has always sent a large majority of Locofocos to the legislature? Does it not know that the Whigs not only did not "obtain the ascendency in the State many years ago," by the means referred to, but that, in truth, they did not "many years ago," obtain the ascendency at all? Does it not know that there has never been a period, since the present organization of the two parties, when the whigs had a majority in both branches of the Legislature? Yes: the Enquirer knows all this to be true; and yet, so knowing, it copies from another paper an article directly in the teeth of facts, and which, unless they are in truth as ignorant as they are represented to be in a subsequent portion of it, every one of its readers knows to be false alike in letter and in spirit. If the Locos had really obtained a "glorious victory," as they assert, would the Enquirer have deemed it necessary to resort to such means to magnify the triumph? Does it not look as if it were rather attempting to gloss over a defeat, than celebrating a conquest?

Then, again, the changes are rung upon the 'Tax Law, which, we are told, was "misrepresented" by the Whigs, who went so far as to induce "many Democrats" to vote the Whig ticket because they believed the tax on horses had been "increased fourteen cents a head," when that was the whole tax, and was only one cent and a half increase upon the tax of last year! Are the people really so ignorant and stupid as to be thus easily gulled and cheated? If they are, where, we pray, is the security of our free institutions? But it is not true.—It is a gross libel upon the democracy—we use the term in its legitimate, and not in its party sense—it is, we repeat, a gross libel upon them, to assert that they were thus easily duped and misled. Besides, where were the loco foco candidates and their other orators and their presses, that they permitted so flagrant a misrepresentation to go uncontradicted? The tax law was inserted in most, if not all the newspapers—What then, was easier to detect and expose the shallow, by which the Globe alleges many democrats" were seduced into an abandonment of their principles and their party? We will not believe that any whig ventured to place himself in so awkward a predicament—still less that "many democrats" were silly enough to be caught by such a flimsy artifice.

We go farther, and to the extent of our observation—which was not very limited, we deny that the Tax Bill was generally "misrepresented." It is true, there were different opinions entertained and expressed in regard to certain of its provisions, both as to their character and their tendency: but these differences were such as grow out of the complexity of these provisions themselves and the intrinsic difficulties of the subject.