Staunton Spectator

[From the New York Times.]
What Are We Coming To?

A rage for marrying black people has lately taken possession of the Republican party. Radicals have carried everything before them, if things go on at their present rate it is feared that, in three months, every white man who is not connected by marriage with a coloured family will be "read out" of the party. The gusto with which the abolitionists go into the insane movement is something at once distinguished and alarming. We shrink from putting on paper the stories which reach us as to the prevalence of this evil. We will only say that there will very soon be hardly a family in the city belonging to the Republican persuasion which will not be glorying in the possession of a negro son-in-law. It is said, we know not with what truth, that the Union Legaue [sic] Club has fitted up a night bell at its door, and keeps a black minister on the premises who marries all couples of different colours at any hour of the day or night. Soon we may expect to hear of duels being fought about some black washer-woman, and crowds of white men thronging the basements of those families who have coloured servants in their houses for the purpose of soliciting the honor (?) of their hands.

It is with great reluctance that we speak out our minds in this matter. But we have no hesitation in saying that if we had at the outset conceived it possible that hostility to slavery would ever have led to wholesale intermarriage with negroes, the Republican party should never have received any countenance or support from this journal. We owe it to ourselves and to posterity to say that the thing has taken us by surprisee [sic]. It never entered our head. We now see and confess our errour [sic] and deplore it.

The question which now naturally suggests itself to every right-minded white man and woman is, where is this thing to end? Whither are we tending? What is to be done to stop this unnatural and detestable movement. For it is as plain as a pikestaff that if it continues there will be soon no whites left in this once great and prosperous country. We shall all be mulattoes, and be afflicted with all the peculiarities, both mental and physical, of that unhappy race. The signs of this great and terrible change already begin to make themselves manifest in our streets; for the most careless observer who walks down Broadway can hardly fail to observe the appearance on a vast number of faces of the well-known brownish tinge. Let that tinge once become general, and then fare-well, a long farewell, to all our whiteness.

There is but one quarter--and we are not ashamed to own it--in which, in our opinion, we can look for either help or comfort at this crisis, and that is to the great, old, truly national Democratic party. It has its faults; nobody has been forced to call attention to them oftener than we; but it has never yet proved false to its race, and we are satisfied that whatever can be done now will be done by it to preserve the purity of our blood.

In a short time the earth will be made to tremble beneath the shock of armed hosts in hostile and deadly conflict. The armies of the South and North are now girding up their loins for a most terrible encounter. The most crimson page in the book of Time will be written in blood the ensuing Summer. The enemy feel that, if they fail to conquer us in this campaign, the task is hopeless, and that anarchy and irretrievable ruin will be their lot. Therefore it is that they are using every possible exertion to overcome us in this campaign. We should prepare with industry, and resolve to meet their assaults with firmness and determined bravery. We have confidence in the justness of our cause, the exalted bravery of our soldiers, and the fortitude and patriotism of our citizens. It will not be long before these virtues will be subjected to another test of their strength. In the language of the Richmond Examiner, "the sun and winds of April will soon leave the roads dry and hard, inviting the roll of artillery wagon-wheels; the fresh green sward will be firm under the feet of marching brigades; the song of birds upon every spray will upbraid the silence of the charging bugle, and the Favonian zephyrs of spring will softly lift and flutter the folds of the regimental flags. All nature pleads with man to come and do his part, and, seeing battle is the business in hand, cries aloud that now is the day and the hour to put it through. Our long endearing and devoted soldiers would surely move to the fray with even a more fiery and invincible alacrity, if they had good reason to hope that one or two stalwart blows, struck this summer, would close the bitter struggle, and enable the most of them to march to their far off homes through a country wild with joy; through towns and villages illuminated with triumph; welcomed and hailed with patriotic music and "orators of the day"; in a rain of roses flung by whitest hands. Surely a reasonable anticipation of so glorious an autumn would nerve our troops to pass more lightly and gaily through a bloody spring and summer."

By the circular of the Conscription Bureau the commandants of conscripts are ordered forthwith to enroll all persons between the ages of seventeen and eighteen, and forty-five and fifty years of age, allowing them until the first of May to join any company for local defence, formed under the necessary regulations, and liable to service anywhere in the State or to form themselves into voluntary organizations and elect their own officers. Those who do not thus dispose of themselves will be formed into companies, battalions and regiments, under regulations to be prescribed.

Charlie Marshall and Ned Lilly, members of Co. F, 5th Virginia Regiment, "Stonewall Brigade," Army of Northern Virginia, are desirous of opening a correspondence with some young Ladies, with a view to matrimony.

Best reference can be given as to character, both as citizens and soldiers. Any ladies desirous of opening such a correspondence, will please address us as above.

April 12--3ts.