The Valley Virginian

Cause and Effect.

Of late years political contests in Virginia have been waged with a bitterness and malignity that have left no room for the exercise of reason or the indulgence of any sentiment of magnanimity. The Conservative party, under the lead of men who have made politics a profession, have been able to control the elections by appeals to the passions and prejudices of the people, and all who questioned the wisdom of its policy were denounced as traitors to the State and enemies to the South. This course has engendered a disquietude and dissatisfaction, which have necessarily led to work out sooner or later, a revolt. We have before us the result in a political confusion without a parallel, and the future of parties.

The leaders of the Conservative party had felt so securely entrenched in power, that they were indifferent as to the methods by which they had retained their ascendancy. Their appeals to prejudice and passion had been so invariably successful that they recklessly disregarded all protests of reason, and all appeals to justice and right, based upon the laws and constitution and the pledges of the people. They seemed to act as though there was no hereafter—no conscience to be revolted, no power to punish wrong-doing and no appeal that could awaken a sense of right with the constituent element. Advanced to power under the nominalism of True Republicans in 1869, and a solemn assurance that every right stipulated for in the Amendments to the Constitution and the laws enacted for their enforcement, should be respected and enjoyed, they no sooner felt fortified in the position they had won, than by a systematic design, they proceeded to discard the name under which they had fought and won, and to devise methods to circumvent the very laws they had pledged themselves to stand by and enforce. Not only was the most relentless political proscription visited upon every one who would not range under their lead, and submissively bow to the mandate of the caucus, but every office in the State from the highest to the lowest—from Governor down to flour inspector—including the Boards of our various charitable institutions, the Supreme, Circuit, County and Corporation Courts, was filled by the partizan sympathizers of the managers who had secured power by false pretenses, and broken pledges voluntarily and solemnly assumed. So relentlessly did a spirit of proscriptive partizanism dominate, that in the whole catalogue of offices, within the power of the Governor or Legislature to appoint there was not a single Republican who held official position. The Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches of the Government were the enginery for the enforcement of party behests, and so far as any participation in the Government of the State was concerned, those who did not subscribe to the vindictive and proscriptive methods of the managers, might as well have been in the Feejee Islands.

So intense was this feeling and so jealous of the despotic partizan power exercised, that six years ago, fearful of a revulsion of public sentiment, the Legislature changed the law for its meeting to the first of January, so as to furnish an excuse for the usurpation of the rights and duties of the Legislature to be elected that November, in the selection of County Judges. The terms of these officers expired on the 1st of January. The Legislature elected in the November previous would have met in December and proceeded to the election of the judges. But apprehensive of the verdict of the people, the law was changed fixing the time of the assembling of the Legislature in January instead of December, so as to give a pretext for the expiring legislative body to usurp the prerogatives of the incoming Legislature, and thereby enable them to choose a partizan judiciary. That this was the object is fully sustained by the fact that at the next session of that body, it rescinded the law fixing January, and substituted December as the time of assembling thereafter.

After the adoption of the unconstitutional amendments to the State Constitution, restricting the right of suffrage, and the election of a Legislature under them, the provision requiring biennial sessions of that body was disregarded, although the Legislature had been chosen under the amended Constitution, enforcing the restrictive clause as to suffrage. The amendments were of simultaneous adoption and should have been of simultaneous enforcement. The clause restricting suffrage was enforced in the election of the Legislature, and the Legislature itself, thus elected, assembled under the Constitution as it existed before the amendments were adopted.

We mention these instances to show the reckless spirit that has prevailed with the Conservative party even as to the laws and the Constitution, and that party interests have been regarded as paramount to all other considerations. The people were never consulted. The direction of the caucus; the movement of the machinery, could not be questioned. It was law, and the anathemas of the managers were ready to fall upon any one who dared to interpose a protest, or intimate a doubt.

While these things were going on, the people were groaning under taxes; the public debt was increasing by reason of defaulted interest; credit lost; property depreciated, and all the great interests of the State neglected. Could it be expected that such evidences of bad faith with the people, and reckless disregard of right, and supreme indifference to the welfare of the State, would not sooner or later cause a revulsion? We now realize the result of the cause, and those who have brought it about by their blind partizan bigotry and intolerance and unconcern for the genuine interests of the Commonwealth, are the first to throw up their hands, with the exclamation of 'Ruin!' It is the legitimate and inevitable effect of the causes they had put in motion, and they alone are responsible. The people have revolted, and let the politicians be warned.