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tn.rlav are those who trusted this
V ~r i' ,s a and did its dirty work on
ofpav. There occurs to me one
r! ! . ! ‘‘, e of this kind and the story is
U r,.j t ns one worth the telling. On the
Y Jj; , n os the negro reconstruction
there was a certain man—l spare
i - L "7.'line—who gave in his adhesion to
He toiled faithfully in that
bau cause, organized leagues, registered
* (C . S> showed them how to vote, and
♦V; went to a reconstruction convention.
Moiiey flowed in upon him and at one
Jin! • he held no less than three or four
«• nitrate places of profit. When the b -
- e , nstitution was framed he worked
it through and then, panting from his
labors, came up for his reward. It was
denied him. He was no longer useful
, m( j v :l s rebuffed like a beaten cur.
One by one his offices fell from him and
to-day* he is beggared in reputation and
purse*. Ere he wont too far he was
warned, but no, they couldn’t cheat • him
and so went on his way. What happen
ed in his case has happened in others,
hook at the loil editors who sprang up
sometime since throughout the South like
pestilent fungi; where are they now?
The Cungress used them and gave them
public advertising to keep them afloat
before election, but now the patronage is
gone; they have nothing to live on, be
cause the people justly hate them, and
we by one, they and their sheets rot into
>blivion. “Dirt-eatingdon’t pay.”
And yet, despite these accumulated
warnings, here are some folks in Virginia
who have gotten up a “new movement,”
and want to sell out to negro suffrage on
condition they are allowed to run for
office. A letter from Richmond informs
me these worthies are chiefly from the
Valley, where there are very few negroes,
and that elsewhere in Virginia they have
but a very feeble support. Negro suf
frage in the Valley—in the Valley of
Virginia—and that by a bargain and
sale o! some of the Old Dominion’s
own sons! Shame, shame ! Why it was
there that Stonewall Jackson made his
fame—there that the glorious valor of
the old Confederate shone most splen
dent—and there where the cross-barred
flag waved most otten in triumph! It
would seem as though the voice of the
noble men who baptised it with their
lives into the name of Liberty, would
cry out agaiust the sacrilege. Office !
indeed. Do not these traders know that,
shameful as is the price of their wares,
they will not g-et it even when they have
sold themselves out upon the block ? The
trade will fall through. Mark the pre
diction.
but let us leave these Esaus, with the
po'uige left out, and take a look at some
thing inexpressibly more charming, to
wit: that angel, Woman. , You are to
know that in these days when the dear
creature improves upon Providence by
all sorts of little artificial devices, one of
the most important corporeal falsities
uoout her is false hair. Now I have
nothing to say against this; if she de
lights in clapping a great wad of stuff
that comes from nobody knows where,
iijon her comely noddle, so be it ; she
ha& virtues enough to bear her out in
H‘l) much more heinous transgressions
than tnis. But as I was saying surrep
titious locks are iu great vogue and there
b quite a fashion as to the hue thereof.
Otu-c it was blonde and forthwith all the
peasant girls in Germany Lad their hair
cropped to supply the American demand.
iaen turned to auburn and a vil
lainous amount of cheap champaigne
was sold as, on being dipped in this, it
was found the blonde would take a deeper
hue the present fashionable tint is
hktek and, as carrotty heads are by na
ture in the high ascendant, you can read
ily see what fortunes the dyemakers are
amassing. How long black will last, we
eanuut tell, tor indeed the changes are so
sudden that one can hardly keep up with
, Culor one ’ s Angel’s hair should be.
w ay she may beam on you with a
resplendent golden aureate about her
I'imv and to morrow it paralyses you to
1 ' . locks have turned to raven in a
. Xatural, y all this is con
i f™ ,ea d» to some cruel mistakes
s ™g el is apt at times to be very
ju." asonatilo and insist that, though her
ln ‘‘ vcre rambow-hued, one should
;>«' ■ r at once and recognize her with
a il,oment’s hesitation as the fairest
S , tl ~l and the one alto
s nu lo\ely, as indeed she is
1,1,1 friends the philanthropists
e ncen soquiet of iate that there is
« t , n U ‘ them - The men who
'•at to build an an-line railroad to the
t'.'oii are perfecting their plans in private;
tty religionists have not as yet suc
m rootipg out thebible; and as
b long-mmded women, one of them
been so aetualjy derelict to her prin
n • ,, iat ‘ slie luus hitched herself matri
to one of “these horrid
no sn ,,„ i * iavG been no meetings,
boy- ! ' ll yi n°’ hi the wayof“agita
-- iteru 1 ly, nothing beyond a feeble ‘
controversy as to whether man has
reached perfection, or whether he is to
go on improving until science shall fur
nish him with wings and tail leathers so
tuat lie nan fly like a bird. The truth is
yon see, that "Progress” has come to a
decided halt since the lamentable upshot
of the “movement” in favor of a mur
deress, wheieof I wrote you some time
since “Progress” said she was inno
cent but the poor wretch confessed her
guilt; “Progress” said also that her law
yer was a rogue, but the whole bench,
pi ess, and bar vindicated his honesty;
and futhermore, whereas “Progress” de
clared the Governor would pardon the
criminal it turns out that the Governor
has no power to pardon at all. This
amounting to what is sometimes known as
coming out of the little end of the horn,
“Progress” has gone into its hole and
the usual philanthropic monkey shows
have not been presented in consequence
of this sad event. It is hardly likely,
moreover, so desirable a state of things
will long continue and as soon as a
change occurs it will give me pleasure
to apprise you of all the new develop
ments, taking, as I do, an intense delight
in all the capers of the trooly loil. To
me they are as the grasshopper, the blue
bottle fly, the little white headed Bra
zilian ape, the guinea pig, or the wren;
why created, God only knows, but still
quite amusing in their wav. They sit on
the wheel and hop around in the dust aud
think they make it all and shat the great
lound world revolves at their bidding and
would at once sink into nothingness if
they were not there. Miserable, little
red-nosed wretches, do they not know
that high above their pitiful “Progress”
sits a Supreme Arbiter who sways the
universe as regardless of their * feeble
squeak as the sun stops not in his course
because some goggle eyed astronomer is
trying to find out bis spots with a ten
cent telescope. Tyrone Powers.
NOBLE LETTER OF GENERAL HENRY
A, WISE,
Richmond, Va., Jan. 9, 1869.
Dear Sir: No apology was necessary
for your note to me of the 7th inst,; for,
surely, if “the prominent men” who late
ly met in this city, to whose movement
you refer, may meet here and take into
their deliberations and guardianship our
rights, opinions and sacred honor as well
as their own, without our consent, or
consultation with us, we may humbly
speak for ourselves, and say whether we
choose them to represent us at Washing
ton or not. I do not concur in their
movement. lam not willing for them
to represent me, and I protest against
, every reason they have urged for their
i conclusions and their course. You have
sought this expression from me, and I
had resolved to be silent; but I don’t say
this reluctantly, as their is a necessity
and a duty now to withhold no longer
from each other any well considered opin
ions we have formed, and which we ex
press calmly and with decorum. Sever
al of the “prominent gentlemen” who
met here, and who, it seems, have sent a
deputation to the Federal capital, are my
friends, and all of them are worthy of
due respect, and I would say nothinof
their course, doubtless taken from°the
best of motives, except what is necessary
to “save me from my friends !”
I can’t say that the “movement” of
the “prominent gentlemen” surprised me:
preceding events cast their shadow before
them. The meeting last summer at the
White Sulphur, tli£ conservative messen
gers between North and South ; the cre
dentials they bore from one to another
leader; the terms they proposed as a
sine qua non of success in the Presiden
tial election; and the late essay of
“Senex” in the papers, all disclosed to
me the form of movement which now pre
sents itself visible and tangibly, out of
all shadow or darkness or doubt, palpa
ble and distiuet. We can’t now fail to
know what it is that some g'entlemen
will accept though they would not have it
by all means, if they could help them
selves ! Aud the least sagacity warns
you and me and ail that their expression
of willingness to accept what you and 1
can t consent to take, will probably pre
vent us from getting what a little" more
endurance and patient, biding our time
might have obtained by a still firm faith
in the obligations of a written constitution
and in the returning sense ot justice and
patriotism in the minds of the nation to
observe them. 1 heir “willingness, thus
put forward of any trial for the very
right, may persuade our enemies of such
weakness on our part as to tempt them to
turn another screw upon us ; but it will
not either prevent what was inevitable in
the intended course of our enemies to
wards us, or mitigate its severity in the
least Cvi bono, then? I tell you
plainly that, if, as you say, the “Alexan
dria constitution” or the “ Black Crook”
constitution are to be the alternatives of
my fate, I will take neither. As Mr B
Ist. Os territory, defined by known
and fixed boundaries.
2d ; Os population, defined by known
and fixed citizenship.
3d. Os electors, defined by a known
and fixed elective franchise.
4th. These three elements of republi
can government are primary, and consti
tute the conventional capacity or power
of a State or body politic to form a Con
stitution, or the organic law, irrepealable
and unchangeable, except by the con
ventional power, and supreme in the
State.
oth. The secondary elemeuts are mu
nicipal, represented by the three depart
ments, executive, legislative and judicial,
embracing all officers and agents for the
enactment, the execution and construc
tion of statute laws.
These elements are necessary to the
being and action of a State ; but the pri
mary elements alone are essential to its
being, however the officers and agents of
the municipal departments may be essen
tial to its action. There may be no gov
ernment, no members of the Legislature,
no judges on the bench—they may be all
W. Leigh once, under the signature of
Algernon Sydney, said respecting much
less significant alternatives: “If I take
either, may a coroner’s inquest bring me
in 'felo de sej stick a stake through my
body and bury me in the highway ?” If
either is forced upon me, I am not to
blame; but I will be blamed by myself
and my heirs forever if I take either, by
and with my own consent, or for and in
consideration of a price. I would as soon
barter honor or chastity for a price. If
Virginia is to be forced, she will be
pitied; but if she consents, or sells her
honor, her oath will never be taken that
she was violated.
Let her take death, I say, rather than
dishonor 1 There is no political senti
mentalism in this; but common sense
and faith in the moral law, and some ex
perience in political events, teach me it is
policy and expediency thus to abide in our
own continence. “Gentlemen” say it is
to be forced on, us, and therefore they
consent. My reason for not consenting,
is that it is to be forced upon us. Why
consent if it is to be forced ? Why help
the force to wrong us ? Why strip our
selves of all plea before judicial tribunals
oi the tribunal of the world’s public
sentiment ? \\ hy not save our honor ?
Cui iono, I repeat, to consent? Is
there not something better for u.s than
either of these alternatives ? If not, then
I for one will fold my arms and ’ take
what force may dictate. lam not sure
that it will not be better than “prominent
gentlemen may bargain lor. They are
too weak in numbers and influence to be
my national attorneys in fact, and I don’t
approve of their programme of action. I
don t know what their instructions are, be
yond the principles they have avowed which
I can t endorse. And, so far as lam con
cerned, I prefer to be illegally and un
constitutionally disfranchised by consent
in such a case, involving honor as well
as right, liberty and public law. What
better can we do, do you ask ? Any
thing, I say, is better than to consent to
the violation of both the State and Fede
ral constitutions, in yielding every point
against which we have been contending,
aud thus far holding out. But there is
something far better than either the
Alexandria or the Black Crook Consti
tutions
What has become of that Constitution
of Virginia under which she, as a body
politic.was existiug, when Congress ob
tained her consent to form the State of
new Virginia, while the war was raging ?
Os that Constitution under which she sent
Senators and Representatives to the Con
gress of the United States before the
war began and before new Virginia was
framed by and with the content of old
Virginia ? Did the State expire in the
act of consenting to have that Eve-like
rib taken from her side ? Couldn’t she
sur\ ive, and didn’t she survive the opera
tion because she was herself an Eve and
not an Adam, too feminine herself to bear
the excision by human surgery instead
of by Divine touch ? Was it a Cajsarian
operation upon a mother’s corpse ?
Strange to say “prominent gentlemen”
say that the State died. I say she did not.
ami that she nas a Constitution yet sur
viving, under which she may well live,
long enough at least to take anew lease
loi living long, and, I hope, forever,
they say the late revolution (consisting',
as I say, of a conflict of States and Gov
ernment,) destroyed the body politic, the
State of old Virginia. I say that, so far
from it, if there is anything true in the
facts of history, anything certain in the
science of logic, or anything known and
acknowledged in public law, it is that
the State of Virginia existed and con
tinued to exist during the whole war, 'as
ever before the war, according to the acts
and construction and consent of Congress
And of what did the State of old
V irginia, or any body politic, or State,
consist ?
destroyed by act of God, by pestilence
( n by war, or they, the mere municipal
officers, may all leave the places of the
offices of the State, but the State in all
its elements and parts may, and Virginia
did and does, continue to exist. The
meie municipal departments may have
lost all these offices and may be wanting
in all their functionaries, but the body po
litic exists unless destroyed by foreign
war, or by a successful and consummate
revolution.
Confederacy of States and the Federal
Union of States was not a foreign war,
inter gentes, but it was a civil war, an
unsuccessful revolution of States, the
failure of which exposed neither States
nor persons to the jus belli , absolute un
der the laws of nations, but exposed
persons only to the penalties for rebellion
and treason under the Constitution of the
United States.
In stating these propositions, I am re
tying on no obnoxious, and now prostrate
principles of State rights, such as those
of 98 and ’99. They were hushed and
made silent by the result of the war.
But I am speaking the plain doctrines of
the Constitution, of public law, and of
the Federal judges and of the Federal
American publicists. I speak by the
Constitution aud by authority of Wheat
on’s elements of international law, when
I say the Government of the United
States is a compositive government.”
Its sovereignty is divided into “external”
and “internal ” Its “external” sover
eignty is merged in the Federal body po
litic of the United States of America.
Its ‘ internal” sovereignty is originally
vested in its component parts. Its ex
ternal sovereignty is governed by the in
ternational law, with its absolute “jus
belli ; aud its internal sovereignty is
governed, not by the international law,
out oy the supreme law of internal sov
ereignty, the Constitution of the United
States, which gives it no power to make
war at all upon its own members, the
States of the Union. It is a solecism to
say that any sovereignty can make
war upon its own citizens," subjects or
people.
It follows, theaefore, that the power
given to Congress to declare war, is a
power to declare war against foreign na
tions, and its supreme law is the inter
notional law. Ihe jus belli of that power
is absolute—it may do all that “war” can
do; it may seize, capture, kill, blockade,
beseige and devastate; it may destroy,
annihilate a State, by taking its territory,
making captive its people, and oblitera
ting its sovereignty and very body po
litic; but out; thing as an exception
proves the rule of its absoluteness—it
can t hang its “enemies” for treason.
Major Andre in the revolution could be
executed as a “spy,” but he could not be
as a “traitor.” Great Britain might
have annihilated the independence and
sovereignty of the United States, in the
war ol 1812, but she could not have
executed Andrew Jackson for treason on
land, or Isaac Hull for piracy on the
high seas. But, in a civil war, internal
and domestic, where revolution and re
bellion are endeavoring to overthrow es
tablished government, and are resisting
by force their own rightful sovereignty,
the rule is exactly reversed—the rebels
arc traitors not enemies, and may be
executed as such, because they are trai
tors and not enemies; but the govern
ment and States, bodies politic and sov
ereignties, which they rebel against, don’t
fall, are not destroyed by the rebellion or
revolution, unless the latter are success
ful. Civil war itself does not let in the
absolutism of the rule of the international
law; but the language of the United
States Courts is, “ the Constitution pre
serves all its vitality” as the supreme
law over the Federal Government and
the States and their citizens and subjects,
(see opinions of United States Courts for
the eastern district of Missouri and the
Southern district of Illinois, Ac., opinion
of Hon. Samuel Treat, p. p. 36, 37.)
One of the ablest opinions upon the war,
its nature and effects, says: “If the
traitor must be treated ouly as an ene
my not governed by the municipal but
by the international code, he could be
held only as a prisoner of war, but not as
a traitor, nor could he be punished for
his treason. * * * * And, on the
other hand, if every war recognized by
the Constitution, instantly, and of its own
force, clothes any one or more depart
ments of the government with absolute
power, or powers unknown to the Con
stitution, or prohibited by it, then the
other strange anomaly must exist, viz :
the instant overthrow ot the Constitution
as an organic and supreme law by any
act ot treason, however insignificant in
proportions, which chance to be com
mitted in any part of the country by any
number of citizens, however inconsidera
ble. Iu other words, the resistance to
he overcome leaves no constitutional
power to be exercised against it; tor, if
the Constitution ceases to be obligatory
because it is assailed, then it expiree
whenever it is assailed, and no one has
authority to defend the
annihilated source of authority.”
of th7co g afede r r e aef t rJ t W “ the P o **
h*qii- . aer acy to be recognized as a
be treat *1 . Ulu er ie laws of nations, to
This waq aS euem * ee an( l not as hostess.
1 was one step to independence and
EBRSii.^’SSJ
tnlZllL 1 ' oltunatcl y. the Federal
pnsoueis were numerous enough to be
pledges against that danger. The hn
inanities only of war were recognized
prisoners were exchanged, the° yellow
flags of hospitals were respected, and
flags of truce were interchanged. Little
else besides these characterized the re
e lion as a war. And immediately after
the struggle ceased, all the timid Con
lederates dreaded nothing so much as the
theory of treason, the doctrine of “ Hoste «
non Imicif' they “felt the halter draw”
and saw in that doctrine the most dread
u flaw ! With diabolical sagacity
one club-footed Radical, an enemy, arch
enemy of constitutional liberty, took
them at their word He to took the idea
reprobated by Judge Treat: that the
Southern States were under the casus
belli of international law, and that the
nation was authorized to act outside of
the pale ot the Constitution. He would
not hang traitors, but he would apply the
searing iron of “war” as its conquest
a,nd subjugation to the very Hfe-blood of
States, and dictate elective franchise and
negro suffrage. Upon this his recon
struction was founded; and the worst that
can be said against what “ prominent
gentlemen” have done and what they pro
pose to do, is, that they have fallen into
the pitfall set for them by Thaddeus
Stevens !
I beg leave here to pause. I am not
done with the theme, and will prolong the
argument by the time you publish 'this
quantum sujfficit for the present. An
other letter may suffice to explore the
whole argument of the “perils of the
Commonwealth.” For my part I would
prefer to have a halter around my neck.
under the doctrine that by the Constitu
tion and laws of the United States I am
ji tiaitor, than to be saved from execu
tion by the yms belli , under the absolute
lule ot which, the State ot Virginia may
be annihilated. I would prefer to die
lather than that the State of Virginia
shall be stripped of her Constitution and
the privileges of her citizens and voters,
and that the Constitution of the United
States shall be set aside or abrogated by
the substitution of international law in
its place, iouwill hoar further in a
aay or two, and in the meantime, I am
yours, truly, . Henry A. Wise.
r I o 11. It Collier, Esq., Petersburg, Va.
NEW ORLEANS (LA) CORRESPONDE NCE
OF THE BANNER OF THE SOUTH.
Banner of the South :
Place aux Dames ! The dear crea
tures, not satisfied with the infinite variety*
in the style of their ducks of bonnets,
have taken to toying with tiles, which
hitherto formed a distinctive badge of the
ruder sex. I would not say that the
ladies wear the hats. Oh ! by no means.
They only carry them for the purpose of
turning up their noses at the ridiculous
things. Since the arrival of the acrobatic
Hanlons in our midst, with their won
derful equipoise jugglery, our streets are
fairly alive with sprightly feminines who
trip gaily along with their chins to the
front and noses in air, while their spark
ling eyes never lose sight of the tiny huts
miraculously poised on the tips of their
•acliinatory organs.
Some of the malicious and envious
b’hoys, who can’t perform this trick be
cause of their inability to hold up their
heads, say that the g’hals could’nt do it
either without the counterbalancing
weight they carry behind, in the shape
of a hair-covered turnip. This vegetable
question as between the nose and the
chignon, is one of too great delicacy for
a hasty decision.
Some readers of Ancient History think
they can trace the demoralization of
Greece and Lome to the too great fond
ness of the people for the displays of the
arena.
Whether or nofc this deduction bp true,
every observant citizen can testify to a
great increase here of tin? Broken-Back
fever since tiie arrival of the Circus com
pany with its Egyptian camels. These
unsightly creatures are daily paraded
through the streets ; and the consequence
is, sir, that it is with fear and trembling
that a quiet citizen now-a-days sees his
wife or daughter go out a shopping, Jest
she should return home with one or more
humps on her back. And don’t we all
know how every lady in tin; land has
panoplied herself in hoops, since these
“airy nothings'’ have become so popular
in the arena Ah! my dear Banker,
there are more and deeper evils traceable
5
