Staunton Vindicator

War Proclaimed

It will be seen by the notice in another column, that the friends of Breckinridge and Lane have called a meeting for Monday next, to appoint delegates to the Charlottesville Convention, and that it is expected Hons. S.F. Leake and Wm. Smith will address the people on that occasion. This movement we consider a virtual throwing down of the glove to the friends of Douglas and JOHNSON--a formal declaration of war--and as such, we accept the challenge. Anxious for an adjustment, upon fair and honorable terms, of the differences which exist in the Democratic party, the friends of Judge Douglas in this District have manifested a generous disposition of conciliation, and striven in an unselfish spirit to bring together the riven parts of our organization. In this they have been animated by no sensation of timidity or want of faith either in the numerical strength of their friends, or the sound, conservative and catholic sentiments of their platform or position of their candidate. We have been for peace and harmony. According to others the same honesty of purpose that we claim for ourselves, we have carefully approached and examined the points of difference, without discovering any insuperable barrier to fraternization for the accomplishment of a common end--the defeat of the Black Republicans. In this spirit, we presented for the consideration of the Democratcy of the State a fair and just basis of agreement, which ass been totally disrespected by the friends of Mr. Breckinridge. Indeed, instead of exhibiting a willingness to harmonize and meet upon terms of equality, they have rather manifested a spirit of supercilious superiority, and, through some of their presses, affected to hold as "aliens to the Commonwealth of Israel"--as fungi to be lopped off from the party organization-- the friends of Judge Douglas. With an air of impudence, better suited to the council-chamber of an irresponsible despot, than the threatre upon which play both personal and political equals, they threaten to read us out of the party! if we do not subordinate our convictions of right, based upon a principle which lies at the foundation of our system of government, and which is dear to every American citizens who is not blinded by prejudice, or whose common sense has not been lost in the mazes of metaphysical absurdities, to their speculative ideas of political economy and governmental polity.

To such demands and threats, coming from a bastard organization, conceived and consummated in a spirit of disunion and disorganization, every element of manhood in our nature rebels. A degree of presumption is manifested by these Seceders, the proper classification of which would be the vagaries of the demented, were it not that it comes from men ordinarily esteemed sane, but the result of whose "concerted action," if successful, must destroy the Union and win for them the renown of infamy which history has associated with the name of Erostratus.

In their view of dissension, disorganization and disunion, is the meeting called here for next Monday. Conscious of their own weakness--of the abhorrence of the great mass of the Democratic voters of this county to the revolutionary and disunion schemes of Yancey and his followers--they have invited two distinguished speakers from a distance to be present to cajole and deceive the pole into the belief that the interest of Virginia and the South demand the support of the nominees of the Seceders' Convention.

We shall not believe until we see it, that William Smith and Shelton F. Leake will so far forget the relations they bear to the Democratic party of Virginia, and especially this Tenth Legion District, as to interfere in our county meetings, and thus assist in widening the breach that already exists in our organization. The writer of this and those with whom he acts in this important emergency, have been the true, tried and faithful friends of these gentlemen. When Mr. Smith was distrusted and assailed by his own party in every section of the State, we stood firmly by him, defending and upholding him, and jeoparding [sic] our own interests by facing an incensed Democracy in his behalf. We wrote for him, spoke for him, and fought for him, in a time when he needed friends--when he was the object of assault from every quarter, and when the popular current was so fearfully against him that he had not at one time a dozen friends in this county. Still, in this hour of difficulty and gloom, we the more boldly proclaimed our confidence in his devotion to the Democracy, and the more fiercely denounced his enemies, until, at last, we had the proud satisfaction of witnessing his complete triumph, and the vindication of the justice and wisdom of our course. We can scarcely, therefore, believe that Mr. Smith will be so oblivious of the past, so disregardful of the present, and indifferent to the future, as to wilfully throw himself across the path, in hostile attitude, of those who have been so true to him, when it required nerve and will to be a friend.

We may with equal point and propriety ask Mr. Leake whether he can reconcile it to his sense of fairness and justice and to the obligations of past associations to permit himself to be used to cleave asunder and separate forever the Democratic party of Augusta? The very men against whom Mr. Leake is solicited (and to which solicitation we learn he has yielded) to war--whose honest convictions he is invited to impugn--whose Democracy is to be assailed and whose policy denounced--are the men who proved themselves friend to him who sticketh closer than a brother, and never forsook him, until overpowered by numbers, and yielded then only in obedience to a loyal adherence to the usages of the Democratic party. We cannot see the necessity for either of these gentlemen interfering in the party affairs of this county. But on the contrary, we shall deem it an indelicate intrusion upon contested ground, and cause sufficient to wipe out all past recollections of friendship, and to commence anew as implacable enemies. If they are so far forgetful of what is due to the Democracy, and to those who have fought bravely for the cause of the party, as to officiously obtrude themselves upon a county meeting for the purpose of distraction and strife, and that, too, by virtue of an invitation from those who have no authority to speak for the Democratic party of Augusta, we shall feel absolved from all restraint imposed by party or personal associations, and treat them as political intermeddlers and enemies. Our voice is for peace, but if the opponents of the regular organization of the Democratic party and its Presidential nominees will have war, we have no alternative but to throw aside the scabbard, and enter the field in defiance of the right, and the honor and integrity of the Democratic party.