Staunton Spectator

MESSRS. EDITORS.-Whilst we are watching the movements of the Radical Congress, would it not be well to look a little at home in these days of trial and affliction? What is the condition of things?

Are we exercising towards one another a spirit of kindness, forbearance, charity, sympathy and benevolence? Is not the very reverse the truth? We seem to have entered into a sort of race of devil take the hindmost; so that I swim, don't care who sinks. It is all right enough that people should honestly and fairly work to repair their injured fortunes and improve their condition, but at the same time they should take care of the rights and feelings of their neighbors. Perhaps all this is somewhat brought about by what we call hard times. This leads us to inquire, what has brought about hard times?

The first that I will mention is, our taxes are heavy. It requires a great deal to pay them. This is a necessary evil. Secondly, our pride. We are too fond of dress and show. We have not, as we should have done, withstood the temptation put before us after our downfall.-Our women, mighty good if kept within proper bounds, have been fruitful in bringing about pecuniary troubles. We have exhausted our money, what we had, and run on credit upon the merchant, notwithstanding his pasteboard written thereon, "positively no credit," in large letters.

The next that I will mention, is after the break down, there came into existence, as if by magic, two institutions in our town with all the paraphernalia of banks. Whether these institutions rest upon credit, money or the representative of money, we shall not stop to enquire. Perhaps the remains of the defunct Confederacy was made to help in some way. They spread themselves out and have had many a poor fellow dancing attendance upon them, holding themselves out as great blessings to the community. Negotiables passed round and freely. Some were so fortunate-fortunate, did I say?-unfortunate as to get their notes through; renewals and curtails came, no notices being given of the time of maturity. Neglect and overlooking them comes protests, then comes a meeting of the Directors; they gravely and formally refer all protesed paper to a committee to select such as must be sued upon them comes from the Valley National, or National Valley, I don't now recollect, some 14 or 15 suits in one day in one of the courts-pretty well for one day.-Why all this?

Some are shrewdly guessing that we have in service, in Richmond, a body of men called the Legislature of Virginia, who are hammering away at the repeal of the usury laws-the wires being pulled in certain quarters to have done, and our banking gentry are getting ready for that great event in Virginia, call in the money, get rid of all six per cent. paper, then come in with negotiables, then we can select from the highest premiums and best endorsed paper. Who doubts our religion or respectability, since the taking of all we can get has been legalized.

What is the Legislature doing, Messrs. Editors? In my judgment they are expressing themselves to the imputation of holding on for the sake of the per diem, gobbling up the hard earnings of the people, and playing into the hands of the favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride legitimately by their action.

In conclusion, Messrs. Editors, let me here, as one over whose head a good many years have passed, who has had his fingers burnt once at six per cent., caution all against debt, especially against putting their hands to negotiable paper. The devil is under it.

OBSERVER.

On Wednesday last, the Legislature of Virginia rejected the proposed constitutional amendment with only one dissenting vote-W. D. Lewis, of Fairfax county. In the Senate, the vote was unanimous.

Virginia has the fortitude to endure with calm resignation the wrongs which may be inflicted upon her by the strong hand of power, but she has the courage and self-respect to refuse to be particeps criminis to such conduct, and will, under no circumstances, place the brand of degradation upon her own brow.

At the last session of Congress, the House of Representatives passed a bill granting suffrage to the negroes of the District of Columbia. It was not passed in the Senate at that session because, the elections being about to take place and knowing that it would be vetoed by the President, they were afraid to risk the elections upon the question of negro suffrage, and determined to postpone it till the elections were over. As soon as they could, after the re-assembling of Congress, they passed the bill. The President promptly vetoed it in a message, the argument of which is conclusive and unanswerable. Congress took no time to consider it, but, as previously determined upon, passed the bill over the veto as soon as the reading of it was concluded.

The great source of embarrassment to the people of the South is the denial of our political rights by the Radical Congress, and money from beyond the limits of the Southern States will not flow in till our political rights shall be restored. Increasing the rate of interest will not have that effect unless our political status be changed for the better. The denial of political rights to the South embarrasses those who have property, and grievously oppresses those who have no property. The poor who have only their labor to depend upon are the chief sufferers. The Radicals profess great friendship for the colored population of the South, but their policy oppresses them grievously. With the Richmond Times , "we can conceive of no class of men who would be more benefitted by the restoration of the South to her political rights and privileges than the negroes. The pall of gloom and suffering which hangs over the South is the result of political influences and apprehensions, affecting our persons and property. But the conditions which affect, and the circumstances of distress and uncertainty which surround us, growing out of Congressional action already taken or anticipated, visit upon the negro more terribly than upon the whites at whom the blows are aimed. Let us explain what we mean, and let the critical see if the facts of political economy and common sense do not sustain us.

We suppose it will be admitted that the condition of the laborers in all the counties and communities depends upon the prosperity of their employers. If the capitalists suffer, the labor employed by their capital suffers in a still greater degree, because labor has no resources to fall back upon. The negroes of the South cannot prosper until the whites prosper, and the whites cannot prosper as long as they are threatened with ruin and political disfranchisement. When success shall once more attend our efforts to retrieve our ruined fortunes; when wealth and plenty shall once more smile upon our land, the negroes will be the first to bask in the sunshine of our prosperity. As long as we are poor; as long as Congress by its action drives capital from our borders and forbids its entrance; as long as we are ostracized from all participation in the Government; as long as our status is unsettled there will be a depression in fortune, morals and education in the South, and this condition will tell more terribly upon the blacks than the whites; because the former have not reached that position that will enable them to battle with adversity and successfully struggle with competitors in the sharp contest for food, raiment and shelter.

If our political troubles and disturbances were composed in the dawn of that prosperity which would begin to arise among the capitalists, the land-holders of the South, the negro would find increase in wages, and consequently an amelioration in every physical, social, moral and religious point of view. Poverty prevents education, causes crime, and produces actual physical suffering. We assert it as an axiom, which admits of no argument, that the negro can only thrive through the thrift and happiness of the Southern whites; and the Radicals have fatally lost sight of the fact that every measure of hate and vengeance which they level at us hits Cuffee twice as hard as it does the "rebels." Nor will they help his condition by making him a voter, for the power to vote does not carry with it the faculty or means of making a livelihood; and if an interest in politics shall cause Cuffee to attend public meetings, go to barbecues and fish-fries, and discuss national questions at all country stores and cross-road groggeries, then the boon of suffrage will not prove profitable in broad and [unclear] point of view.

If the Radicals really want to help the negroes they cannot do so more effectually than by refraining to blast the future of the Southern whites. Suppose a pestilence or an earthquake were to take off every white in Dixie, has any one ever reflected how the negroes would get along after we were all gone? If he has not, let him consider their condition in Africa, Jamaica, Hayti and in all places where he works out his own salvation.

On Tuesday last, Mr. John Wayt of this place, on of our most worthy citizens and pleasant gentlemen, had a fall which rendered him unconscious for some time. The pavement being icy, his feet slipped up and the back of his head struck the pavement with great violence. He has recovered from the shock, and is now attending to business as usual, with his wonted affability.