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About Weekly constitutionalist. (Augusta, Ga.) 185?-1877 | View Entire Issue (June 3, 1868)
the weekly constitutionalist WEDNESDAY MORNING. JUNE 3. 1868 Club Rule# for **»* Weekly Constitution alist. That every one may be enabled to sub scribe, and receive the benefits of a live jour nal, we offer the following liberal terms to Clubs ; 1 Copy per year - - ' 3 Copies IW r year - - * 5 Copies per year - - - - w 10 Copies per year - - ’ We trust that every subscriber to the paper will aid us in adding to our list. CROPS AND OUBREN t NEWS. Our subscribers and friends in the coun try will confer a favor on us and our nu merous readers by sending us items as to crop prospects and general news in their different sections. We trust that each subscriber will consider himself a special correspondent for the Constitu tionalist, and thereby add to the interest of the paper. THE CHICAGO PLATFORM- , Elsewhere, we print in full the Radical platform adopted at Chicago—a platform of “ rusty generalities and unmeaning spe cialities.” The New York Times breathes more free ly and thinks it as good as could have been expected, under the circumstances. Con cerning the resolutions in favor of reduc ing taxes and strict economy, the 77wzes ad mits that they have a twinge of irony, w lich is the caricature of truth. It says: “ The party has been in power lone; enough to have gathered a rich store of performances. It should have been able to go before the coun try with a record of services rendered in re gard both to retrenchment and taxation. The public purse has been for years altogether in its hands. It has had exclusive management of the appropriations and exclusive power over the forms and amount of taxation. How hap pens it, ’.hen, that in a platform intended to set forth its claims to continued confidence it has nothing better to offer than resolves in favor of reforms which it has obstinately and culpably ne glected! Why is it that no serious attempt has been made to enforce even moderate economy, and that, in consequence, the abolition of taxes must be followed by their re-imposition or by a large addition to the debt ? These are weak spots in the party’s record. They are a condemnation of its recent Congressional career, and a sorry exemplification of its fidelity and ca pacity in fiscal and financi tl affairs." The twelfth resolution, sympathizing with oppressed peoples everywhere, is dismissed as “buncombe.” It is much more, in our opinion ; it is as vile a bit of hypocrisy as ever emanated from a serious body of tyrants. Taken as a whole, the Times thinks the platform will do, inasmuch as it is upheld by the strong arms of Ulysses S. Grant. We have given some of the criticisms of this, the most moderate of the Radical or gans. The following excoriation, from the Baltimore Gazette, will come up to the mark of true Southern feeling on the subject, and present, in as ciear and cogent a manner as possible, the meretriciousness of the entire scheme for catching all sorts of gulls. Says the Gazette: “Knowing the Radiqil leaders to be adepts in the manufacture of political claptrap, we looked for precisely some such platforms as they have put forth. If the American people are merely a set of simpletons, then the Chi cago Convention must be regarded as having done its work very skillfully. Read in the light of common sense, the resolutions are ridiculously puerile. The Radicals affect to congratulate the country l on the assured suc cess of the Reconstruction project of Congress, as evinced by the adoption in a majority of the States, lately in rebellion’ of constitutions ap proved by Congress. Considering the facts that every material interest in the South is languishing, if not perishing—that capital is leaving that section—that the State govern ments are in the hands of a set of political squatters and the most ignorant and impover ■ ished portion of the native population, and that the constitutions were * adopted’ through the agency of the bayonet, disfranchisement, negro votes and fraudulent ballots—consider ing these facts, it required no small assurance on its own part and no little reliance on the stupidity of the people to congratulate them on the condition of the country under Radical rule. Equally cool and equally mon strous is the proposition that negro suf frage must be maintained by Congress in the South, but that ‘the question of suffrage in ali the loyal States properly belongs to the people of these States.” The men who avow this doctrine are, be it remembered, professing loudly their reverei ce for the Constitution and their desire for its re-establishment through out the whole land. Repudiation, which no one has advocated, is of course denounced.— The national debt, which reached its present proportions because the Radical party tolera ted so many and such enormous frauds, ought, it is said, to be “ extended over a fair period lor redemption,” and the rate of interest there on to be diminished. The Government “ should be administered with the strictest economy, and the corruptions which have been so shamefully nursed and fostered by Andiew Johnson call loudly fora radical re form , but it was not thought necessary to have radical reform when cotton brokers bought in Washington licenses to trade with “ rebels,” and Benjamin F. Butler and his brother were stealing and cheating the Gov ernment in New Orleans. The President, who has made less use of his official patronage than any of his predecessors, has, it is urged ‘perverted the public patronage into an engine of wholesale corruption, and has been justly impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and properly pronounced guilty thereof by the vote of thirty-five Senators.’ Naturalized citi zens, soldiers and sailors are of course patted, as it were, on the back, and ‘foreign emigra tion ’ is declared to be one of the props of the country. But the most astounding specimen of what in the slang vocabulary is called ‘qfieck’ is exhibited in the closing resolution, which an- nounces : ‘ This convention declares its sympa thy with all the oppressed people who are strug gling for their rights.’ We can Imagine how Stevens will grin over this—how Wade will playfully commend the declaration in a few choieelv obscene phrases—how Yates will give it for a toast over his twentieth tumb ler. ‘ Sympathy with ali the oppressed people who are struggling for their ri«hts !’ A large-hearted sentiment that.— Sympathy for Irishmen, for Poles, for Cretans —sympathy for Mexican bandit and Cuban ne gro-sympathy for all men, black and white, Jew and Gentile—save and except a negro in the North and a white Democrat in the South. The right to vote is an inherent and indefeasi ble one, according to the Radical creed, but that party has persistently refused that right to the negro, though it has controlled all the Northern States by large majorities. The right of self-government and civil liberty arc the birthright ot every American citizen, but ten States are held prostrate under the heel of a military despotism. Throughout the whole length and breadth of the Southern land every citizen is liable to be turned out of office, fined, imprisoned, or sent hand-cuffed to the Dry Tortugas at the bidding of any one of the sa traps who govern that section, and the people who have erected and who support this despot ism are canting mawkish lies about their sym pathy for oppressed people. Are they right in their calculations ? Have sense and truth and honor really deserted the country ?” BAD FOR CIVILIZATION- Wenpf.ll Phillips, not being able, even with seven tongues of wrath, to do justice :to the impeachment fiasco, actually turns I about and confesses that Johnson is “ no , sinner, but a great logy rock.” Having ! presented him as rock, and seemingly for getful shat the chief of the apostles was a ! similar obstruction to the spiritual as the | President is to the political “gates of hell,” I the eloquent Phillips demonstrates that rocks must be blasted and put aside. He thereupon blasts Mr. Johnson in vivid rhe torical powder flashes : “ I do not know or care whether be is a great I criminal or a great blunderer dug up from the | mud of Tennessee, but all I know is that there ' is no pathway for the nineteenth century down to the South, except through the White House. He bars the door ; I want him to open it. J [Great applause.] Like the old Arabian legend, when the man walked up and pronounced the name of Solomon, as the loyal North stalks to the door of that misused White House, aud pronounces the name of Ben Wade as an open sesame to let civilization enter.” Wendell Phillips has the same hank ering for spoils that one Joseph E. Brown has; but their genius of civilization smacks rather of Dick Turpin than Saint Fran cis de Sales. Phillips wants his party to enter the White House for the sake of the spoons, and Brown wants a piebald wing of the same party' to enter into the government of Georgia for similar purposes. Phillips, more of a scholar than Brown, callsit “civilization and Wade;’’ Brown, less of a philologist than Phillips, calls it “ Bullock and patronage.” The con cluding paragraph of old Pulaski’s speech at Chicago ran thus: | “We desire that the Stevens bill which just passed the House of Representatives the other day be slightly amended in the Scn ' ate, and then passed. The amendment we de- I sire is to allow one Governor Bullock to con vene his Legislature. Do that, and they will adopt the constitutional amendment. Then ‘ let them receive us iuto Congress, and give us the control of the State government and its patronage, which we fought for and won and must have if we succeed in this contest. Thus, extremes meet between the rabid New England fanatic, and the wily ex-se cessionist of—South Carolina. Ben Wade is the Solomon of Yankee-land; Bullock the Solomon of Congo-land. Their civili zation consists in turning everything into racket for the sake of personal advancement and the enfranchisement of ex-cannibals for the sake of patronage. The South has not escaped, very far from it, a visitation of Northern civilization in war and peace, Andrew Johnson being President and a hypothetical rock. Imagination alone can conceive what civilization had in store for her when Ben Wade and his Solomonian household, personifying the loyal North, advanced to the White House breathing the open-sesame of Benjamin Butler : “We want more spoons 1” So far, we are thank ful that Mr. Johnson was as stone to the entreaties of Wendell Phillips with his profane and blasphemous civilization. We make a thousand salaams to His Rockship and - bid him study petrifaction to the end of the chapter. God has chastened us with bitter rods, and we may have deserved the discipline ; but we should think hard of fate, if the “civilization ot the loyal North,” with Ben Wade as its exponent, should be added to our other galling and desperate calamities. W herefore, we are not sorry that Mr. John son is a “ great logy rock.” We would that Mr. Stevens were in the same category.— The one stands bolt upright against the encroachment of the Ohio Silenus; the other bends willowy against Brown and Bullock, ready to yield, we fear, when the latter exerts that winsome smile of his upon the dusky partner of Tiiaddeus’ joys and sorrows. The only trouble may be in Jo seph, who rather over-did the thing at Chi cago, when, among other charming confes sions, he acknowledged that he was still a white man and partial to white supremacy. Alluding to this, a Chicago dispatch says: “He was at first applauded, but before he [ concluded the Radical men in the convention I denounced him, and called him a rebel, singing out while he was speaking. When he announc ed that be could not support any policy that would put the negroesfcof the South over his own race, the indignation was universal. When this came out it was at once discovered that there was not enough love for the negro to suit the convention.” This may keep Bullock out of office for I a time, and prove fatal-to Brown’s love of* “patronage.” But, eventually’ “civiliza-l tion” must roll on, and so we may antici- i pate another d-rt-eating experiment ending with an explanation to suit the tastes of I tiie “ colored Leaguers,” that when Brown argued in favor of white supremacy he did so to sit well on both rails of the fence, and can assure his carpet-bag allies that what ever is distasteful must be taken in a Pick wickian sense. Brown is uo rock. Con sistency is no part of his plan. Has he not told the Radicals that he is an enemy in war, in peace a friend ? Is not this a direct intimation that, in case of another skirmish, be will be found on the side that looks most prosperous, and will take Pulaski a second time, if he can ? SHERMAN BROUGHT TO BAY. When General Tecumseh Sherman was ravaging Georgia and marching his bum mers to the sea, he little dreamed that his misdeeds would one day come back upon him. He little imagined that curses out of the mouths of his own countrymen would gain point and sarcasm from his Georgia brigandage. Such, however, is the case, and at the very outposts of the Western frontier, as far away as Cheyenne, in Da kota Territory, Gen. Sherman has met with rather savage talk from his fellow citizens, who, perhaps little less ferocious than Indians, think that any tenderness evinced for red-skins on the part of the General Commanding, rather ridiculous, when regarded in the glare of the Atlanta and Columbia conflagrations. Whether he has become pious since 1864; or whether his baptismal appellation has something to do with it; or whether the Indians arc more terrible than militia, we do not know. But this we do know, that three thousand border men met the great Tecumseh at Cheyenne and had a pow-wow with him. We learn that they were too many for him, and never having been accustomed to meet the enemy without vastly superior forces, Tecumseh drew off ingloriously and took refuge in Fort Russell. A correspondent of the press thus pictures the scene: “ Among the crowd which gathered about the distinguished con-flag-rat or, were many who differed with Tecumseh on the character ot civilized aud savage warfare. One old fron tiersman, who had doubtlessly posted himself in regard to the mode of warfare practiced by Sherman in bis ‘ Trip to the Sea,’ cried out in a stentorian voice, which proved that he could wake the echoes in an echoless land : ‘ Sugar for Injine—Hell for White People !’ 1 Niggers and lujins for Sherman !’ A third bawled out: ‘ Hello, old boss ■ whar’s yer fire that burnt out poor widows—won’t it burn up these red nig gers ?’ Another said, sarcastically : ‘ Nurse ’em kind ’o nice, General, while they get more scalps I Who’d be a white man long’s there’s nigger and Injins. We do not pretend to decide the contro versy between Sherman and his constitu ents. It may be, indeed, that his policy toward the Indians is the better one ; but it is a singular fact that the tenderness of his soul never fouud vent until it ap proached the atmosphere of the Rocky Mountains. It is a little curious that the Hun who trampled Georgia aid insulted Carolina should turn milk-sop in Dakota Territory. SHARP AND QUICK. Hulbert’s letters to his friend Duer are only matched by Forney’s manipulation of the telegrams of the editor of the Savannah Republican. On Saturday, May 16th, the editor of the Press sent the following dispatch to John E. Hayes, editor of the Republican : “ Please telegraph to Press to-morrow (Sunday 17) a short dispatch of the feeling in your city on the reception of the news froin Washington to-day. I will recipro cate if you desire. Answer. John W. Forney, Jr., Managing Editor Philadelphia Press. To which Mr. Hayes responded : Office Daily Republican, Savannah, Georgia, May 17, 1868.— T0 PhiUidelphia Press : The telegram announcing probable acquittal of President received with joy by Conservatives. Radical office holders and seekers disgusted and alarmed at the news. Intense axiety prevails among all classes to hear final decision, while it is generally conceded by both parties President will be acquitted. The patriotic and unselfish course of Fessenden, Grimes and other Re publican Senators has had i most salutary effect upon minds of the ultra Southern peo ple, and will prove beneficial to our whole country. John Hayes. Interpreted by Forney, after a surfeit of green peas, this disnatch was printed in the Press as follows : [Special Telegraph to the Pbiladelplfa Press. Savannah, Ga., May 17.—The news an nouncing the probable acquittal of Andrew Johnson was received here with joy by the rebels. The Union men arc cast down and alarmed ; they fear the result. The so called Conservatives of this city are more outspoken than ever, and we can look for an early expression of their views and feel ings, in a manner peculiar to the ultra Southerner. From all parts of the State comes word of the rejoicings of the ex-rebel soldiers. The perfidy of the Republican Senators will cause many Northern men in Georgia to return home. To stay here has long been scarcely possible. Now no Unionist will be allowed to remain. In tense excitement prevails everywhere to hear the final decision, but is generally con ceded by both parties that the cause of Jell’ Davis has this time been triumphant. Hayes was “ struck all of a heap ” by t his fresh defalcation of the Secretary of the United States Senate, and denounced his perfidy and rascality. But we all know the impossibility of spoiling an egg too old for conscription. A telegram from a Forney should be opened like an infernal machine ; to answer it is equivalent to repacking the machine and sending it through the mails to your own address. We hope Gen. Meade will read ‘hislatest exhibition of the honesty aud fair-dealing of “ my dear Mr. Forney.” Forney, Jr., is evidently a son of the Great Original who wrote the Jaineison letter. We have attributed this little game of deception to the big imp, because the lit tle imp is only a catspaw. Perhaps he re vised the telegram as Joe Brown revised his Chicago speecli—to suit the latitude. “ A wet May,” says an old saw, “ makes plenty oi hay,” which is some slight eonsola lion. GEN. MEADE’S HEAD BULLOOKITE. The Columbus Sun and Times publishes the following correspondence: Headq’rs District of Ga., ) Office Sup’t Registration, ;• Atlanta, Ga., May 8, 1868. ) John M. Duer, Esq., Columbus : Dear Sir : Did Hinton, the Senator elect from your District, hold office before the war? Can’t yon get up affidavits from the counties of Marion aud Chattahoochee ? Try. Get Dr. Gilbert and other friends at work at once, and send mo their affidavits. Can’t you send me the affidavits of yourself and Chapman, of frauds committed in Columbus, or at least that force and intimidation were used by the rebels against the freedmen ? Let me hear from them. Yours, E. Hulbert. Headq’rs Sub District of Georgia, 1 Office Sup’t Registration, > Atlanta Ga., May Bth, 1868. ) John M. Duer, Esq., Columbus : Dear Sir: Yours of the 6th at hand. We want affidavits proving force, fraud, intimida tion in violation of General Orders. We must have them. Go to work and get them up at once. The names of the parties making the affidavits will not be known to any person except your self and the Board They need have no fears on that score. You can swear them before Capt. Hill. Please go to work “ sharp aud quick.”— Get Chapman and other friends to assist you. The election in your county will be contested. Defend yourself by attacking the enemy. Respectfully, &c., E. Hulbert. Protest against this sort of thing is use less. Gen. Pope appointed the fellow Su perintendent of Registration, Gen. Meade endorses the appointment by retaining him. All of them are, probably, very deep in conspiracy against us, and appealing from Hulbert to Meade is like appealing from Sumner to Thaddeus Stevens. We should be pleased to have a better opinion of the General Commanding, but facts are stubborn things. Spies. —Thirty odd years ago, says the New York Express, when news came to this country of the system of espionage in opening private letters, practiced in the post offices of Italy, and once in the British post office, the whole country denounced such conduct as infamous. But there are worse practices going on Wash ington to-day. The telegraph offices of Balti more and Washington are ransacked for pri vate telegrams, and the managers consent to obey the summons of a committee constituted by a party and for the worst of party purposes. No business, no message, no letter, no dinner table, no bed room, no library, no kitchen even, is sacred from the intrusion of these vagabond impeachers, set on by Ben Butler. His detectives, paid for by the Government, are in New York to-day, as they are in Wash ington city and elsewhere. They use not only the post offices of the country, but all its ma chinery. They demand that Senators shall be arraigned, and seek to destroy their good names by holding them up as capable of cor ruption. No wonder that Bingham is sick. If he had in him a particle of manhood he would hang his head in very shame, if, indeed, like Judas, he did not even bang himself. Not Over-Honest.—The Louisville Jour nal says: “ Governor Brown, of Georgia, declared himself, in the Chicago Convention, to have been an original secessionist. He wasn’t, how ever, honest enough to confess that he would always have remained a secessionist if he had not seen that be could have no hope of riding into office except upon the shoulders of the negroes and white ‘ scallawags.’ ” [From the Philadelphia Age. Purity of Blood. When all the counties are heard from, the, majority in favor of a white man's govern ment will mount up over forty thousand, and show that on this question of forcing ne groes upon an equality with white men, the Radical p rty cannot control the white masses in the North. Whenever and wherev er it has been tried, the result was against the project. From Connecticut to Kansas, the people have repudiated political miscege nation. They are willing to protect all the civil rights of. the negro, to afford him an opportunity to work out his destiny in the path specified by nature, but nowhere in the North have white men evinced a wil lingness to open the ballot-box for the in discriminate use of negroes. Repeated at tempts to give the ballot to the negroes have only resulted in increased majorities against the scheme. It is only in the South, where white men are ruled by the bayonet, and States reduced to the condition of dependen cies upon a central despotic power, that uni versal negro suffrage has been put in prac tice. And what is the result ? Needy, un principled adventurers control the policies of that section of the country, and the fu ture is dark and threatening from the shad ows of a possible war of races. This fact is having an effect upon the rank and file of the Radical forces. They ask, why should Senators and Representatives from Kansas and Michigan vote in favor of organizing State governments in the South upon a ne gro basis, when their own constituents re fuse to even allow a negro to approach the ballot-box? This interrogatory lies at the bottom of the change taking place in all the Northern States. Men may be misled by passion, blinded by party zeal, but a day of awakening must come. It has dawned in the North and the beams of truth will soon shine upon such a triumph of the Demo cratic party and principles, as will make the nation shout for joy from the St. Law rence to the Rio Grande, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This is a white man's govern ment, and white men are preparing to protect it from the machinations of the party note in power." _ The Blazonry of Shame. —The follow ing is a special dispatch from Chicago to the Commercial Advertiser: “Chicago, May 20.—The knowledge that Senator Wade’s nomination as Vice-Presi dent will prevent the success of a pending negotiation for the votes of two Republican Senators for conviction, who voted against the eleventh article, has virtually with drawn him from the contest.” Negotiations for votes on the impeach ment arc proclaimed as unblushingly as if they were negotiations for corn or cattle. Between whom was this alleged uegotia tion “ pending ?” Who undertakes to buy votes for impeachment, or against impeach ment ? And who offers such votes for sale ? If any such negotiations arc in reality go ing on, the country has the right to know the names of the parties to them. The at tention of the Impeachment Managers at Washington, who are trying to snuff out the secrets oi acquittal, is invited to this telegram.—Wetc York Sun. [Correspondence of the Baltimore Gazette. From Washington. The Situation Critical—lhe Radicals Demor alized—The Duty of the Conservatives— Removal of the 'President still Possible— The Radical* Desponding and Desperate— The Next Presidency—Butler's Smelling Committee —Stirring 7 imes Ahead. Washington, May 22,1868. The “ situation” at this point is exceed ingly confused and critical. The demoral ization of a powerful party must needs affect to some extent the status of its great an tagonist. Public opinion here, however, is very decided that all the Conservatives and Democrats have to do is to remain firm, and by no means hunt after the strange gods. Should they have sense enough to do this, all will come right. Whittled down to the small end of a Yankee whittling stick, the sum of the whole thing is just this: If the Radicals succeed in getting possession, even for a month, of all the departments of the Gov ernment, the country, North and South, will be driven to civil strife and bloodshed — the very forms prescribed by the Constitu tion will be ignored, an aristocracy founded aud confiscation of the property of political opponents made the basis of establishing a moneyed and military despotism. In this view I firmly believe that the eventual dismissal of Mr. Johnson will be effected. It is an absolute party necessity. No sensible man in the Radical ranks en tertains the notion that their electoral ticket can command a constitutional majority.— The present House is relied upon to proclaim Grant President without regard to the popular vote. With Wade in the Executive chair the plan would be feasible, and the Govern ment easily subverted, unless resort should be had to the ultimate physical power of an outraged nopulace. To prevent this mis chief, therefore, the auti-Radicals must se-f lect for their standard-bearer some one whose principles are not subject to cavil —• whose pri/fitence as a statesman is known and undoubted, and whose courage would be equal to any emergency. With such a. man fairly elected, it is thought by every one here who are opposed to the overthrow of the Government that the threatened civil war might be entirely prevented, or at least checked, before the country shall be utterly devastated. Among the different means employed by the Radical taction to obtain possession of Executive power is the institution of inves tigating committees, wit.i the ulterior pur pose of expelling a sufficient number of Senators to effect Johnson’s dismissal. I must be excused (notwithstanding the tre mendous stretch of power involved in this proceeding), if 1 am unable to treat this matter with becoming gravity. It must strike any one that the means alleged to have been ess lyed t® acquit the President are altogether disproportioned to the great end sought to be accomplished. A gentle man named Woolley, it is found out by hook or by crook, had acquired a credit for $25,000 at Jay Cooke’s bank. He is sum moned, and in his testimony distinctly swears that none of this vast amount was ex pended in buying up Senators. He, besides, very fairly accounts for the legitimate ex penditure of $16,000 of it, leaving only $9,000, which the “managers” are delving to show was amply sufficient to purchase seven Senators of their own party ! It is further alleged that a certain gentleman, residing in Cincinnati, was offered $2,500 of the residurn for “the use of his I don’t know whether this individual be a black man or a white one, but I am quite certain that he showed a very proper self respect by utterly refusing any such con temptible sum for his “ influence,” whether it were real or merely imaginary. The maddest man I ever saw was an old dar key, who (in the division of the personal property of an estate,) was bid for by a Yankee negro trader at $75, a price far be low Sambo’s estimate of his value. To suppose that Senators could be bought up at about SI,OOO a head is preposterous enough ! But I should like to know what the Democracy have to do with this thing at all? It is a family quarrel—hands off! It is considered to-day that the dismissal of the President by the expulsion of Senators is not among the (possibilities. A far surer card, and one, I am inclined to think, will be successful, is the admission of the bogus Southern Senators, and the institution of entirely new proceedings. This is now the only feasible plan, and I learn it will be at tempted, with what success in the Senate, or subsequently at the White House, re mains to be seen. Stirring times uheud ! X. (From the New York Freeman’s Journal and Catho lic Register. From an Old Virginia Democrat. Richmond, Va., April 27,1868. J. A. McMaster : Dear Sir: The people of this State are tired of military rule. If you nominate General Hancock you will be defeated. — The people say if we are to be ruled by the military, why not take Grant, the present commander, of the army. If Virginia is permitted to vote at the next Presidential election, she will vote for George H. Pen dleton, and no one else. Nominate Han cock, and the Democracy is whipped. A Democrat. We fully agree with our correspondent. But neither Virginia, nor any other of the ten disfranchised States, will be able to vote freely next November. Not one Pres idential elector can be elected in any of them, on the Democratic ticket. Our cor respondent has fully as good a right to ex press his convictions as any of the Southern Democratic editors who have been journey ing to the North and conferring with the bondholders. But, so far as nominating the Democratic candidate goes, we had un derstood that Southern gentlemen consid ered the nomination should be determined by the States that, alone, have a possible prospect of voting for him, without influence or interference from States that certainly cannot vote in the election. The Congressional Globe of the Thirty- Seventh Congress contains two speeches, one made in March and the other in April, by different gentlemen, which are dupli cates, the Bohemian who undertook to sup ply them having sold the same speech to both purchasers. This is but a repetition, however, of what had happened in Phila delphia in 1798, when a ready writer fur nished one of the “ letters to constituents,” in which Congressmen then aired their elo quence, to the Hon. John Clopton, of Hen rico county, Va., and then sold a verbatim copy of the same epistle to the Hon. Thos. Claiborne, of the Brunswick district.— Somehow the two letters were compared, and although each gentleman endeavored to show that the other one stole the letter from him, their constituents refused tore elect either. A young machinist in L’etroit has made a lo- ; comotive engine and tender, complete, about > four feet in length, and weighing only 300 lbs. attached arc head light, bell, whistle and every j : “ fixin” to be found in a regular locomotive en-1 gine. It can be run with 15 pounds of steam, , : though as high as 30 pounds can be put on, if necessary. The boiler has 13 flues. The maker!' has refused $2,500 for it. ’ I; The Wages of Sin- The following letter from a correspond ent of the Cincinnati Enquirer of recent date presents, no doubt, a correct picture of West Virginia as it now is : West Virginia is now suffering from her new position, which is singularly anoma lous. The population is decreasing. The oil excitement, which invited large amounts of speculative capital to the State, has abated, aud hundreds of thousands of dol lars invested have been sunk, and thou sands of dollars which have been made have also been wi hdrawn from the State. This is, perhaps, tnc most unfortunate cir cumstance In the condition of West Vir-' ginia, that whenever any person, by for tune, luck, or business, succeeds in making money, in any - amount, instead of investing it in property in West Virginia, they im mediately take it to Philadelphia, Balti more, or New York, where it may be en joyed under laws fit for the government of a civilized neople. Such has been the loss of West Virginia from this cause alone, that if the money made in the State during the war from oil contracts alone, had been expended in the building of manufactories and the extension of the cities, Wheeling would have been a city of one hundred thousand, which, under good government, she would soon reach, and with her great beds of coal and proximity to iron moun tains, would be the great iron city of the Ohio river. But the political position of West Vir ginia hedges her pathway to progress. Her ablest, best and most capable citi zens are disfranchised, and the very weak est, worst and most imbecile officers are im posed upon West Virginia from Pennsylva nia and Ohio. These miserable creatures could not find place even among the Radi cals in those States, and all parties now agree that if the people of this State are to have Pennsylvanians to rule over them, they had better transfer themselves to Pennsylvania, aud have the choice from among decent men of that State rather than the offal which they now have. Taking the ignorant and corrupt judicia ry of the State —the purchaseable vagabond legislators that usurp the powers of govern ment—the ignorant vagabondage that casts the vote and taxes the property of tiie State —neither life, liberty or property' is safe, and every interest is now suffering through the mal-administration of government. The State is overborne with taxation, and yet not a public building is completed. We have uo capitol building in which to hold our Legislature and courts; no peni tentiary in which to place criminals, and no hospitals in which to place the unfortu nate. There is a deep feeling pervading in the old Pan-handle people eveiywhere upon the subject of an annexation to the State of Pennsylvania; or, in otner words, to straighten the Southern Pennsylvania line to the Ohio river, making a continuous State fr.'in the Delaware to the Ohio. Per haps no movement which has been made since the year 1860 will meet with such unanimous favor everywhere, as this pro position to change the State line, placing Hancock, Brooke, Ohio and Marshall coun ties into the State of Pennsylvania, so as to straighten the State lines. [From the ADany Argtis. Speculations of the Democracy About the Pd sidency. It is evident that the failure of impeachment, is destined to bring about other results than the acquital of President Johnson. Its effect is to be manifested in the future of the Democrat ic as well as of he Radical party. Already the Chief Justice and seven of the Senators are pl ced under the ban of proscrip tion by lhe Radical leaders. The convention at Chicago is asked to burl against them the thun ders of excommunication. If it forbears, it is because it designs lor them a more silent but a not less inexorable judgment. But the e men represent State and interests aud great segments of the political party or organized as Republican and now narrowed down to Radicalism. These Senators obey in part the pressure of sentiment in their States ; and in part lead and mould that sentiment. Add the approvers and sustainers oi Fessen den’s course to the Democratic party in Maine, and the State is against Radicalism, Illinois, with Trumbull taken from the Radical side, turns the political balance to the Democratic side. His neutrality alone suffices for this ; his transfer to the opposite scale would double the preponderance. Grimes, of lowa, has repre sented the passions and sentiments of his State rather than abiding interests in bis preceding career. If, in severing the ties which bound him to them, his party leave him free to con sult the interests of lowa, it is not difficult to see where he must henceforth be. But he will not separate himself from bis State; for its in tersts are not with the oligarchy of the North west, but with the fast developing States of the Mississippi Valley, South as well as North. The Chief Justice represents sentiments and interests pervading all the States of the nation, and reaching through the new organizations of the South. In the equation of parties, who can estimate the result of subtracting this power from one, and adding it the other side ? It is the problem of politics. In defending their acts of proscription, which eliminates C’haie and the seven Senators from the Radical organ ization, the leaders say that they have already dismissed Seward aud Johnson, Dixon and Doolittle, and a host of others, and are all the stronger for it. But is not this very failure of impeachment the measure of their fading strength ? Is it not manifested in the political revolution of New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Connecticut and California ? It is for the Democrats to take advantage of this state of affairs ; or rather it is its duty to conform its course in the new state of affairs. — It has wisely deferred its convention till the fourth of July, when the whole field will be clear before it. Hon that day it finds a party in the field with its candidates upon a narrow platform, selfish and grasping it its views, in tolerant and proscriptive in its purposes—and if it sees standing outside a large and patriotic body of men represented by Trumbull and Fes senden in the Senate, and by Chase and his fol lowers, it will be its duty to mass all these forces with its own against the common enemy. It must make the contrast which the opportunity' affords between its o*n broad platform atffi comprehensive policy, and tolerant recogni tion of men and views, aud the n -rrow fanati cism oi its opponents. We do not assume to say how it shall accom plish its task —what candidates it shall name, or what questions it shall make the issue upon. But if it enters upon its duty in a statesmanlike spirit, with national breadth of view and with a. purpose looking beyond the pas sins and rival ries of the hour, it will find the way or will make it. The future is before it, and its finest oppor tunities within ieac.l. Let it be wise and firm when the day of action arrives. Death ofGEn. John W. Gordon.— We are pained to announce that Gen. John W. Gordon expired yesterday, after a protracted illness, at the residence of bis daughter, Mrs. Sorell, in Vineville. Gen. Gordon was born in Hancock county, and was well known for many years as a wealthy planter, both in Georgia and Texas. For the last eight or ten years he has resided entirely in Georgia, and for a considerable part of the time has been in declining health. His age was seventy-t wo.— Macon Telegraph, 2&th. Some boys who were playing near Troy, N. Y., the other day, found the dead body of a man apparently sixty years of age, and which had evidently been undergoing decomposition for weeks. Nothing was found on the body to identify it but a piece of paper, on which was writtea : “ I have no home, no friends on earth, no hope, no Saviour in Heaven! There is nothing about my clothing by whiclj I can be identified.” It was written’in a good hand, and punctuated as quoted.
