Staunton Spectator

The signs indicate that there is a probability that the United States, may soon be involved in war with England, France, or Maximillian in Mexico, and, it may be, with all at the same time.

The United States' Government demands from the British Government compensation for injuries done to American citizens by the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers which sailed from British ports, which the latter positively refuses to grant. In the language of a contemporary, Mr. Seward demands indemnity, as a matter of justice, and Earl Russell refuses it as a matter of honor. A "commission" is tendered on that side and rejected on this, and there the matter stands. Now as to Mexico. In April 1864, when the United States had its hands pretty full with attending to the Southern Confederacy, so-called, the U. S. House of Representatives passed, by a unanimous vote, the following resolution:

"Resolved, &c., That the Congress of the United States are unwilling, by silence, to leave the nations of the world under the impression that they are indifferent spectators of the deplorable events now occurring in the republic of Mexico; and they, therefore, think fit to declare that it does not accord with the policy of the United States to acknowledge a monarchical government, erected on the ruins of any republican government in America under the auspices of any European power."

The New York Evening Post asks, "Does any one believe that Congress will care less, now, about the French usurpation in Mexico than it did at a time when our own perpetuity as a nation was endangered?"

In a late speech of Mr. Seward delivered at Auburn, N. Y., he used the following emphatic language.

"I expect that we shall see republican institutions, wherever they have been heretofore established throughout the American continent, speedily vindicated, renewed and re-invigorated."

In his connection the Richmond Bulletin says: "Of the temper in which such a warning and menace would be received by the Third Napoleon, were presume there is no room for doubt; while Maximilian, of his part, has already made his war speech, and vowed to shed, in defence of his crown, every drop of that blood which is now "all Mexican."

The feeling which is to determine the course of this country, must be sought among the people of the Northern States -- not here. The South wants war with nobody, and upon no cause. She is too much engrossed with her own sorrows, and has too much to do in repairing her desolations, to think about, or care about, either Mexico or the Monroe doctrine, Maximilian or Napoleon. She wants repose, and has no feelings to waste on the outside world, whether on the other side of the gulf or the other side of the sea. But the people and presses of the North are in a different mood; and it is they who hold the power and have the votes that are to direct it."

Before the U. S. Government become involved in war with Foreign Nations it should restore the people of the South to all their Constitutional rights. It would not look well to go to war with Maximilian to secure the rights of Mexicans, when constitutional rights were denied the citizens of the Southern States.

The Richmond Enquirer says, "The immediate effects of negro suffrage would be felt in the Southern States; but the white laboring men of the North would not escape its effects. The subject is one to interest them and to influence their relation to parties, and upon their votes, in their own States, will depend whether Abolitionism shall further dictate to the country this humiliation of the white man. These Southern States are powerless to protect themselves against fanaticism; -- their effort with arms failed -- their voices at the polls are unheeded -- the country must be saved from black crusade by the conservatism of the North throwing itself between the fanatics and their victim. They have determined not only to rule these States but to ruin them; to make them the scenes of social experiment without regard to consequences. "To the victors belong the spoils" is their motto, and having plundered us of rights and property, they seek now to degrade us in social life. Our destiny and that of the whole country is involved -- and whether this is the Government of the white man will depend upon the defeat of the Republican abolition fanatics."

The following is the vote cast in this District for candidates for Congress:

It will be observed that Madison is the banner county. The small vote in Craig county is accounted for in the fact that most of the citizens thought they belonged to the Abingdon District, and voted, by mistake, for Hoge. The Valley is the only portion of the State which had the manliness to vote for candidates for Congress who would not agree to take the unconstitutional Congressional test oath. Conrad in the Winchester District, and Stuart in this, are the only Representatives from this State who will refuse to take that obnoxious oath, and two better and abler Representatives could not have been selected. The independent, conservative, Constitution-loving citizens of the Valley feel ashamed of their fellow-citizens in Eastern Virginia who were wont, before the war, to accuse them of a too submissive spirit.--When the time arrived which "tried the souls of men," the election test showed who possessed the most firmness and independence, and the decision was in favor of the people of the Valley, and the counties West of it. Madison is a glorious exception in the East.