Valley Virginian

The Southern people have been taught by oppression and tyranny, an important lesson to watch, work and trust no party, but they like to know what others think about the situation of political affairs. We don't know what to think sometimes--things change so rapidly now-a-days, but the following from the Baltimore Gazette seems to come about to the point:

"In national affairs a crisis has been reached which threatens to culminate in the total overthrow of either the extreme or the more conservative wing of the dominant party, and which may result in the restoration of the Constitution, or the deposition of the President and another and a madder epoch of revolution and anarchy. The Radical party has in the recent elections the strongest incentives to action, for it cannot venture to carry out its scheme for the removal of the President unless it can show that it can still carry with it, as it has done heretofore, a large majority of the people. It is in a situation where it can ill-afford to manifest any sign of weakness, and it has doubtless done its best. The result is that about fifteen thousand voters in Maine, who went with it only twelve months ago, have declined to adhere to its fortunes now. We cannot, therefore, regard the fact, especially when considered in connection with other indications, in any other light than as evidence of a reaction against the Radical revolutionary movement. If this be so, the same influences which have been at work in California, in Montana and in Maine must also have been quietly operating in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and will be productive of similar results. Elections are held in those States shortly, and we shall then know with certainty whether we are justified in the hope that the power of the Radicals has culminated and is on the wane. If the Ohio and Pennsylvania elections are of the same character as that which has just been held in Maine, Mr. Johnson will be master of the situation, and may even, in his way and time, save the Constitution and civil liberty."

There has been a comparatively large immigration of Northern people to the Valley; they have invested their money here and more are coming. They all wish to come South and prefer the Valley because the number of colored people is so small in proportion to the whites. The prejudice, of the working white man North, against the negro is intense and he is the man who will settle up the South. He, or his friends, fought for free white labor and they won. The first question a white immigrant from the North asks, is: "You aint bothered with the niggers here, are you?" Finding we, in the Valley, are not, he buys land and settles. These facts should teach colored folks something. They should study over them and make themselves the best laboring class in the world; they should stick to their old friends and avoid voting and politics.