The Wheeling Daily Register

The United States Senatorship.
Editors of the Register:

A majority of the members of the newly elected legislature of this State being Democrats—a Democratic Senator to succeed Mr. Willey, Republican, will doubtless be elected;—as the administration of the government of West Virginia is for the first time, since its creation confided to the Democratic party, it behooves it to think well and act wisely in its every movement. The people will watch the action of the legislature this winter with the deepest interest. Every act will be looked into and scrutinized with a vigilance and criticism hitherto unknown in the legislature of this State. Reforms for the better in every department of the government will be looked for and expected by the people; and if the Democracy do their duty, they will not be disappointed in their expectations.

One of the first acts of a party character of which the Democracy will be held responsible by the people, is the election of a United States Senator; and the important question is, who is the man they should elect? The answer to this question should in our judgment be duly and seriously considered by every member of legislature before he commits himself or acts in the matter.

The mission of the Democracy is not only to improve and build up the State and develop her rich mines of mineral wealth, which now sleep in her bosom, but to elevate and educate her people, that political refinement, State pride and moral dignity, shall have their just influence in their choice of rulers, so that the stranger and statesman, when they come in contact with her representatives, may have a mirror before them by which her true character and self-respect will be best seen and known.

The Senate of the United States is the highest and most honored representative body in the world, and some of the men who occupied seats on that floor in days gone by, were unsurpassed in great legal learning, national statesmanship, and rhetorical and logical powers of generalization and argument; and there are many able men from our surrounding sister States now in that body, and there is no reason why our young State should not have one too.

We have men of our party in this State eminently qualified for the position, and we hope it may be the pleasure of the Legislature, irrespective of any mere personal or local consideration, to elect a man to the Senate of the United States who can and will make his mark, and one to whom the people of West Virginia can point with just pride, as the equal peer of the ablest Senator of that august body.

ARISTIDES.
November 20, 1870.