Valley Virginian

New Orleans Cresent forcibly illustrates our situation, in the following paragraph:

"As to the question of making every possible use of the negro vote in the imminent emergency, it may be said that Congress has placed us in a position similar to that of some of the early Christians under Roman persecution. Cast naked into an arena among furious wild beasts, with nothing but a stylus or a dagger to defend themselves, it was at their option to do their utmost with such means of defense, or to stand quietly until it should suit the appetite of fancy of the beasts to devour them. By the display of extraordinary coolness, courage, and skill, they had a chance for escape. There is to say the least, more than this much chance for our salvation from utter disaster--and shall we throw it away? Most assuredly, if we stand still, we shall be devoured by the beasts of radical agitation, of political vengeance and venal rapacity, about to be turned loose upon us; and most assuredly, therefore, if a stylus, or a dagger, or a still more efficient weapon come to hand in negro suffrage, it will be simply suicidal not to seize it."

At a large and earnest meeting of the Freedmen of Augusta, Monday night, conservative resolutions were adopted unanimously. Philip Rosselle, colored conservative, an honest man, and Rev. Mr. Brackett, white, Superintendent of Schools, were appointed Delegates to the Convention in Richmond. A resolution requesting Gen. Echols and other prominent citizens, to address the colored people, was unanimously adopted. We have not space for a full report. The colored people have done well, as we expected. White men do your part!

This question is agitating a portion of the press, and, we are sorry to see, the Richmond Whig urging the claims of Pierpont and other so-called, "original Union men." "Original," God save the mark! Is playing over the old game of corrupt politicians, is seeking their own aggrandizement at the expense of their oppressed fellow citizens--"original?" Bah! they have no claims upon our people, and, if they ever had, they have been fully paid by the "feed" they have already had at the "public crib." We speak of politicians, not of the mass of honest and true "original Union men," whom we can respect, and expect to work with, in reorganizing the State government.

What we want now is men of energy; of brains and nerve; men who will truly represent the people and men they can trust. We have had a surfeit of this sickly sentimentality about "conciliating the North," by elevating to office men who brought on all our troubles, by aiding our enemies to overpower us. The Radicals have laughed such puny efforts, to ward off their intended blow, to scorn, and care as little for these men as we do. They force us to do certain things and that is all they ask. Who it is done by--whether "original Union," "Johnny Reb," the "Devil or Tom Walker," they don't care a continental. They prefer that it should not be done at all. We are for putting an end to the farce we have been playing, and feel assured that our people will elect the good and true, not only to the Convention, but fill all offices in their gift with men, (Confederates if you like it,) who will come up to the requirements of the occasion, and truly represent them.

In short, this grand old State and her sisters South, are not left so destitute of talent, even by the Radical disfranchisement, but they can find men who can command respect, and fully appreciate the situation without raking among the dry bones of Original Unionism "so called." And we maintain, without fear of successful contradiction, that policy as well as principle, urge this course. Compliance with the orders of the Military Bill, by a Convention of bob-tailed "Union shriekers" would not effect the Radical power, for all parties in the North would know such a Convention could not truly represent the State, and, then, there is a chance that such a body might be worse than the Radicals--look at Tennessee! But a compliance by a Convention, composed of Confederate soldiers and true men, which would represent all classes, white and black, would effect the Radicals. Such action by such a body would give the lie to all their stories about our being "rebellious" &c.--would open the eyes of the Northern people to the frauds practiced by that party, and at one swoop, hurl it from power and place and, with it, away goes "test oaths," which a capacity for swallowing by the quantity, regardless of quality, forms the chief claim of original Union men, "so-called."

One speech from Wade Hampton, the great Confederate Cavalryman, a letter or so from Johnson, Beauregard, Longstreet, and a paragraph, in the Virginian, giving Gen. Lee's known views, have done more to turn the tide North than the whole body of "original Union Shriekers" South have accomplished in two years of power or ever can. Then away with such folly. Brave, earnest men, intent upon settling a difficulty, do not call upon the weakneed and time-serving to act as friends. The strongest nerves and the clearest heads and the truest hearts are chosen. Let us profit by the lessons of the past.

Pierpont and his pets have played their little game to no purpose, except to irritate old wounds, long enough. Let the track be cleared for the young, the brave and the vigorous minds of the South, and a few short months will show the world, that the hard lessons of the past six years were not learned in vain. Then, a "new Dominion," and a "new South," more prosperous, prouder, stronger, freer than the old, will bless the men whose brains and strong arms, snatched them from the control of those who now, and always, seek, to reap power and pelf, from our misfortunes.

Dear Virginian:--The return of the bright sunshine of Spring, shedding its renovating influence over "Dame nature" determined us to pay a visit to our native town in the lower Valley. And though we might have mounted behind the fire breathing steed, and coursing along hill and dale, been planted upon the soil that gave us birth, yet we preferred riding her surely down the Valley, that we might once more gaze upon the spots, to which our memory reverted, as sacred ground where, engaged in deadly conflict, many a brave and noble fellow consecrated the soil with his blood.

At New Market we found the field upon which Gen. Breckenridge whipped the "Flying Dutchman" enclosed and sown in wheat, looking green and beautiful; the thick cluster of cedars which served as a shield to the flying hosts from the bullets of the little Spartan band under the Command of Col. Ship of the Institute, had entirely disappeared before the axe of the sturdy yeoman as he labors to recuperate his lost fortunes. A little beyond, at the foot of Rude's Hill, on the South, we discovered a white shaft erected, bearing the following inscription: "Erected to the memory of Capt. Summers and Sergeant Koontz, C. S. A., who were brutally murdered in June, 1865, by order of Lt. Col. Hussey,--Ohio Regiment." And then passing on meditating upon this cold blooded murder of these young men in the prime of manhood, the circumstances of which are yet fresh in the minds of all, and gazing upon the beauty of the country and the grandeur of the scenery, just by the road-side we discovered open graves, and we involuntarily exclaimed: Why is this! has the time been ushered in "when the grave shall give up its dead"? Has the resurrection morn burst upon us, and the mortality of those gallant fellows who, once reposed in those open mounds been clothed in immortality? Yes, they have been clothed in immortality in the hearts of their countrymen, and now they are gathered together as one great family of the dead, to repose 'till the resurrection morn in Mount Jackson Cemetery.

They have been resurrected from the earthly resting place to which their comrades, wrapping their blankets about them consigned them, not by the trump of Jehovah, but by the noblest handiwork of God--woman. The spot is a beautiful one, immediately upon the Valley Road, enclosed by a neat paling fence as white as the driven snow, everything exhibiting taste and care.

Let them rest, and as time rolls on may the thousands and thousands of passers by be impressed with the character and virtues of those martyred dead. Upon inquiring we were informed that Mrs. Meem, the widow of the lamented Dr. Meem, is President of the Association.

But travelling on, we found the mighty work of recuperation everywhere making the country smile like an Eden. Barns, houses and fences were being built. Mills and factories springing up, and everybody as busy as a bee. Indeed, never before were we so forcibly struck with the sublimity of a character displayed by the young men of the South. They have proved themselves equal to any emergency--wielding the sword with Herculean skill and strength in the field of mortal combat they now with equal facility convert it into the plowshare. Fisher's Hill, the scene of the sad disaster to our arms in September, 1864, seems to bow her head in shame. The works erected by the labor and toil of the little band under command of the exiled, but noble and intrepid Early, still remain, but no spear of wheat is seen, or preparation made for a stalk of corn. Cedar Creek, unlike Fisher's Hill, appears determined to wipe from her escutcheon the stain of October, 1864, by a renewed and determined effort to cultivate and till the soil and develope her resources.

Kernstown, seemingly proud of the part enacted by her and the honorable connection she has in history with "Stonewall" Jackson, smiles with the prospect of a fine harvest. And there in the distance we discovered the various forts which once bristling with cannon encompassed Winchester, our native place. Many memories of the past clustered 'round and scenes of boyhood hours appeared vividly before us in imagination and thus lost in revery and reflection, we drove up to the "Taylor Hotel," and were aroused by the well known and familiar voice of that whole-souled gallant and genial fellow, Major W. W. Goldsborough, the proprietor. We had the good fortune during the war of forming an intimate acquaintance with the Major, and felt perfectly at home when we met him. He has recently taken the "Taylor Hotel" and we feel assured he will receive the patronage he so richly deserves. Long may he wave. Soon after our arrival we met with our old friend Beall, of the "Times," whom we were delighted to see and to learn he was succeeding so well. The Times is emphatically the paper of the lower Valley. How could it be otherwise when Beall attends all gatherings from Social parties and political caucuses down to a "trotting match" and corn shucking, and is generally the soul of the question. He has been, I am sorry to say, in rather a desponding mood of late, and frequently quotes the following lines upon woman:
"Away--away--your smile's a curse,
O, blot me from the face of men;
Kind, pitying Heaven, by death or worse,
If ever I love such things again."

Winchester is going ahead and with the return of Spring the music of the mechanic is heard, and everything is beginning to put on a cheerful face. Several fine brick buildings have been erected of the Depot, and the rubbish was being removed from the burnt space opposite the hotel, to make way for a magnificent structure to be built by the Masons. The battle fields beyond are all in cultivation, and the plow is sunk deep into the soil, enriched by the blood of hundreds, yea thousands; and all regardless of the terrific engagement, the rattle of musketry, clank of steel and boom of cannon, which almost rent the Heavens, and frightened from their resting places the Nymphs and Naiads, are as "merry as a marriage bell."

We conversed freely with many of the leading men along the Valley upon the topics of the day, and there was only one opinion expressed. That in the present crippled and impoverished condition of the country we want rest and quietude from politics, and the many evils it engenders, and capital to develope the resources of our highly favored land and disembowel the vastness of its mineral wealth. To accomplish this we must reconstruct upon the best terms we can, and they regard the Sherman bill the only basis. The soldiers say that the mere fact of "Uncle Bob" favoring a Convention is enough for them. No doubt is entertained of our ability to control the negro vote--their interests are with us, and the masses will vote with us. We returned home after an absence of ten days, perfectly delighted with our trip and prouder than ever of our native Valley.
STAUNTON.

Our usually discreet contemporary, the Staunton Spectator, is we fear, allowing itself to be swayed rather by passionate impulses than by those enlightened views, that generally influence its course. It advises the white people of Virginia to vote against the Convention, saying:

"They are free to vote for or against the Convention. The choice is submitted to them. If they vote for the Convention, they cannot plead as an excuse that they were forced to do so. We do not know what persons in other sections may do, but we may confidently predict that the citizens of this substantial old county and of gallant little Highland, will record their emphatic protest against the unconstitutional military bill by voting AGAINST the Convention."

We are really at a loss to understand our esteemed contemporary. To vote, and to vote a Convention, and to aid in framing such a Constitution as will embody the features indicated in the military bill, is the test prescribed by Congress. Unless the whites shall co-operate in doing these things, they will, in all probability, be permanently disfranchised, their property confiscated, and the whole States government handed over to the Hunnicutt faction. Is the Spectator desirous of bringing about such a result? Is it prepared for it? It speaks of "choice," as if we could by any action of ours defeat a Convention and prevent the adoption of a Constitution. We had thought that the argument predicated of "choice," like that in relation to "honor," had long since been dissipated in the air. There will be a Convention and a Constitution whether we vote for or against them. If the whites vote them down, the whole reconstruction policy will at once be committed to the faction to which we have referred. This is "choice" with a vengeance.

The blacks will, of course, vote for a Convention, and for such a Constitution as Congress has indicated on the military bill. If we vote against them we at once make a wall of separation between them and ourselves. Our only hope of attaching the blacks to our fortunes, is by manifesting a willingness to vote and act with them in regard to the Convention and the Constitution. The leading object of Congress is, by Constitutional guarantees, to secure permanently to the blacks the suffrage accorded them by the military bill. Of course the colored people will all go for securing this right to themselves, and for the Convention as auxiliary thereto, and they will just as certainly go against all opposed to these two things. Those of the whites who shall vote against the Convention will, whether such be their purpose or not, be effectual co-workers of the unprincipled faction now endeavoring to create division and discord between the two races.--Richmond Whig.

By Jed. Hotchkiss, Topographical Enginer, Staunton, Va.

The Commissioner in charge of the Census in 1860, in the preface to the volume devoted to manufactures recently published, says "It was manufacturing and mechanical resources and the granaries of the West which enabled the republic to arm, subsist and pay immense armies and create iron clad fleets to meet the emergency. It was mainly for the want of these, and not for any lack of courage, will, or skill that the revolt failed. A more striking illustration of the value and power of such resources is not to be found in history; and from it, now that the cause of discord is at an end, the integrity of the Union vindicated and the reign of peace begun, all sections of the country, States, Counties, and parishes may derive lessons of wisdom and profit in regard to the value of manufactures and the mechanic arts." These "lessons of wisdom and profit" have been made available in many States, always with the same results, and wherever the Great Creator has so happily mingled the elements that "plow, loom, and anvil" can work side by side there comfort and prosperity find their habitations. The times here are hard and money scarce, and yet in a region of country twenty miles long and eighty miles wide we have at least a million and a half of bushels of corn, by the estimate of well-informed persons, beyond the wants of our population, worth at least a million and a quarter dollars, and this in a population of less than seventy thousand.

There is another fact in our circumstances that seems strange, lands of the very best quality, on a limestone foundation, in good condition and in a genial climate have an average value of less than fifty dollars an acre, (it was only twenty-five by the census of 1860,) while lands not as good in any respect, in New York and Pennsylvania have an average value of more than an hundred dollars an acre. The best farms in Lancaster county, Pa., are worth $250 per acre, while here they are not worth more than $75. But these things are nothing new: it was a long time ago that Locke wrote "In places where thriving manufactories have erected themselves, land has been observed to sell quicker and for more than in other places":--and Adam Smith, the great English economist, says: "The most opulent nations excel in agriculture as well as in manufactures, but they are eminently more distinguished by the latter than by the former." The conclusion is obvious; we are too much devoted to agriculture, we need more consumers of the products of our lands, if we would add to their value, and these consumers must be brought nearer to us, for now our farmers complain that it costs most of the profits of a crop to get it to market, therefore the corn lies in the crib and the farmer's pocket is empty, and so is every one's for by the plow alone we thrive.

The County of Augusta is about 32 miles square, therefore it has an area of near 1,000 square miles or 640,000 acres and only one third of this is improved, yet in 1860, with a population of near 28,000 this County produced over a million bushels of wheat and corn or about 40 bushels to each person in it; so the county had not only "full rations" for its own people for that year, but enough for a hundred thousand more. From this it may be seen that we can add largely to our consuming population and yet produce no more than usual. It needs no argument, after these facts, to prove that it is to our interest to work two-handed by introducing manufacturing as one of the leading pursuits of our section, and create a market that shall buy all our surplus and quicken the circulation in all the channels of industry. We are so situated now that, although we could do it, it would require a long time for our own people to much diversify their pursuits, therefore it seems best that we should invite, by superior inducements, capital, trained labor and population to come and occupy the unoccupied two thirds of our County and help our people develope the resources Providence has so lavishly bestowed upon us, and so aid us in paying off our individual and State debts, finish our great lines of projected internal improvements, improve our roads, rebuild our schools and bring us again to such a state of prosperity as we once enjoyed, if not to a greater.

Impressed with these views we have concluded that it would, perhaps, be of some advantage to show, in detail, some of the advantages our region offers to those having capital and talent to invest, and call the attention of our own people to their varied resources that they may be induced either to make use of them themselves or offer them for sale at such rates as shall induce parties from abroad to come into our midst and purchase and develope them. There is but one sentiment we know, in regard to an increase of population and capital here, all desire it, and men of sense and industry with or without capital come from where they may, will be welcome.

The New York Herald is the best political barometer in this country, and it is gratifying to note that it sees the tide is turning in the North. In its issue of the 9th, "the prospect and probable political results" of reconstruction under the Military bill, are discussed at length. In speaking "of the harmony and political affiliation, between the late slave-holders and their emancipation slaves" it uses the following language, which we should profit by on the principle that 'it is always best to do exactly what your enemy don't want you to do." It says:

"Now this is a state of things deserving particular notice, and which was certainly not expected by the old radical abolitionists of the North. These radicals erroneously supposed the negroes hated the white master race and would take the earliest opportunity to turn against them. The teachings of the war, in which the negroes voluntarily fought side by side with their masters, did not eradicate this error. The radicals have been expecting, since the war closed and the slaves were emancipated, that these people would vote and act in opposition to their old masters. They begin to see their mistake, however, and are in a terrible state of anxiety about the consequences. No tide of Northern emigration, however great, nor any amount of radical speechmaking and preaching can turn the political current in which the blacks and the whites of the South are united and combined for action. They both see their interests are the same and irrevocably fixed in the same section of the country."

"We cannot yet see fully where this surprising political and social revolution will end. It will certainly produce an extraordinary influence upon political parties and upon the destinies of the republic. The radical press is dumfounded and knows not which way to shape its course. The fruit of years of agitation is likely to turn to ashes in its mouth. The Southern States, with their eighty or ninety Representatives and twenty Senators in Congress, will hold a large balance of power, and the probability is that both races will remain united in the interests of their own section and in support of the same political party."

The paper asserts that "the Radicals have broken down the first line of Conservatism in this country--property in slaves. The next, they say, is property in non-taxable bonds, created by statute law. "Revolutions never go backwards" is the motto of the party of "great moral ideas." We will see.

To see strong, hearty young men, with brains in their heads and strength in their muscles, loafing on street corners, railing at 'hard-times' and whining about "having nothing to do." This whine is occasionally varied by a tirade against the "d n-d lazy niggers," but for whose labor some of these "gentlemen of elegant leisure" would be starving now. Go to work and feel like men.