Phenix Gazette

From the Richmond Whig, March 16.

THE CAUCUS.

The Caucus met, pursuant to adjournment last night, and again continued in session until near midnight, without completing its business. It meets again this evening at five.

Mr. Miller's Resolution and Mr. Brown's substitute, were debated at great length, by Mr. Goode, Mr. Gholson, and Mr. Miller, in advocacy of Mr. Barbour's nomination, and by Messrs. Brown, Dromgoole, and Dade, against it, and in favor of leaving the Electors untrammelled. Mr. Williams addressed the Meeting also, in equal reprobation of Barbour & Van Buren, convulsing the audience by the humor and eccentricity of his observations. Mr. Ritchie, having obtained leave, also addressed the Assembly, in explanation of certain allegations of Messrs. Goode and Gholson. Reference having been made to a vote of Mr. Cabell Nelson, in 1824, by Mr. Dromgoole, that gentleman, who has the misfortune to be opposed to Jackson, though attending the Caucus in obedience to the will of his constituents, addressed the Caucus, in a Speech admirable for its spirit, and in every sentence planting a dagger in the vitals of Jacksonism. So energetic was the Speaker; so just did every man feel his indignant remonstrances to be, and so remarkable were the sentiments in tone and spirit, for that place, and under those circumstances, that the Galleries testified their approbation by loud and sustained applause.

We hope to publish the whole Debate.

The question was taken at last on Mr. Brown's amendment, which proposes to leave the Vice President undesignated, and carried in the affirmative—ayes 97,—noes 34!!!

We need not apprise the reader of the import of this vote—that it is a virtual rejection of Mr. Barbour, and nomination of Mr. Van Buren; for although it was disclaimed that the evasion of the nomination of a Vice President by the Caucus was designed for Mr. Van Buren's benefit, no man can really doubt, that the project was conceived in that spirit, and that it can have no other termination. We mean to question no gentleman's sincerity—much less the gentleman from Petersburg, whom we have long been proud to reckon a friend, and who, individually, meant no more than he expressed—but we cannot shut our eyes to what is plain as the sun. If there had been a doubt before, the proposition made by Mr. Dromgoole, to send Delegates to the Baltimore Convention, and which will, no doubt, this evening be decided in the affirmative, removes that doubt. Only Van Buren's friends will be there, and even if the Virginia Delegation objected, they will be outnumbered, and must, in honor, sustain the nomination, after acquiescing in the mode of making it. But, the matter is too clear to be argued; and although, for good reasons, his name may not be quartered on the ticket, it may, nevertheless, be asserted that the Caucus has for all practical purposes nominated Martin Van Buren as Vice President.

We have been for some time prepared for the result, but not for the majority which effected it! Philip P. Barbour, Virginia's favorite State Rights Champion, beaten three to one on his own dung-hill by Martin Van Buren, the advocate of the Tariff of '28, and a Tariff man! (acknowledged by Mr. Brown of Petersburg.) Mr. Barbour thus tremendously handled, in the teeth of his own letter, wherein he gives consent, provisionally, (if it did not injure Jackson!!!) that his name may be brought forward! Is it thus Virginia rewards his inimitable talent at hair splitting? Verily, marvels will never cease. Such an event was far beyond the range of human foresight! So well did the machinery work; so handsomely had the screws been applied, that Mr. Barbour's own representatives in the Legislature voted against him—his whole Congressional District, in fact, except Spottsylvania. All hands, indeed, made warm professions of esteem, admiration, and all that sort of thing—but they voted against him, and in Caucus, as elsewhere, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Van Buren's New York machinery, newly brought to Virginia upon trial, works splendidly. But there is one redeeming circumstance. Virginia will soon become a Tariff State.