Staunton Vindicator

The subject of calling a Convention under the Military Re-construction bill seems to have exorcised the people of our State to a greater degree than was consistent with their usual calm and patient fortitude under trying circumstances. We believed all the while it was the occasion of greater excitement than there was any necessity for. Although our every feeling and sentiment revolted at the idea of Virginians being made a party to their won degradation, as it seemed to us would be the case if their representatives in the Legislature called the Convention, yet we did not think proper to add to the feeling, which seemed to be increasing, between those who opposed and those who favored a speedy call of a Convention by the General Assembly, by inveighing against the precipitancy which the latter proposed as the proper course to be pursued. We felt that it was useless to argue against the calling of a Convention by the Legislature, as we were satisfied then, as we are now, that Congress is not done with us. There is too much capital in Southern Re-construction for the Radicals to let go the hold which they have upon us yet.--He that thinks otherwise is but flattering the wishes which beget his thoughts. No! when Conventions are called and Constitutions framed in accordance with every requirement of this bill, Congress will refuse to approve them and admit our representatives, until every particle of Radical capital is exhausted from the anomalous political condition in which the people and States of the South are now placed.

The Stevens-Sherman-Shellabarger bill provided in a general way for Southern re-construction, by the calling of Conventions, &c., but failed to specify who should call these Conventions. This want of specificness induced the contrariety of opinion on the subject in this State, and has attracted the attention of members of Congress, as will be seen from the bills offered in the Senate by Messrs. Sumner and Wilson, which we publish in another column. It is stated by a late telegram that the Judiciary Committee of both Houses of Congress will report a bill similar to the bill offered by Mr. Wilson, which will settle this question by making it the duty of the Brigadier Generals to call the Convention, or if they prefer delegate the authority to the acting Governors. We doubt not this will be equally acceptable to those who opposed voluntarily accepting a degrading scheme and those who would soften the inevitable blow by a precipitate acceptance. We do not cease to report the S. S. S. bill as unconstitutional and outrageous, and to condemn its authors, aiders and abettors, who could force it upon a brave though powerless people, but we do feel a satisfaction in knowing, since come it must, that we are not to be made parties to our own degradation by voluntarily accepting it, but that it is to be forced upon us, and that the only subject of division among our people since the defeat of the Confederate armies is thus removed.

Since the passage of the Stevens-Sherman-Shellabarger bill, an association of negroes styled "The Loyal Political Society" has been organized under the leadership of Hunicutt, and others of that ilk. The object is to send lecturers throughout the State to inform the negroes in regard to their newly acquired privileges and for whom they should vote, these lectures to be supported by an initiation fee of twenty-five cents and a contribution of ten cents per month. Here we have the seeds of future disturbances preparing to be sowed broadest throughout the State. These lectures will endeavor to poison the minds of the negroes against their only friends, the whites of the South, and will succeed with the ignorant material with which they will deal, unless an antidote is administered. This antidote we have at hand. It seems to us incumbent on those persons, in every community, who have the greatest influence with the colored class, to call them together and explain carefully and truthfully the situation in which they are placed, by the act declaring them suffragans, and point out to them the course they should pursue, which leads to no conflict with, but will retain the friendship of their white friends of the South, with whom their lot is inevitably cast, and upon whom they are certainly dependent. A failure to do this is a failure to perform a duty to our former faithful slaves, who will thus be left at the mercy of those men who will be sent among them to sow distrust broad-cast, and whose teachings can only be productive of evil to Whites and Blacks.

From the report of Gen. Howard, Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, relative to the destitution in portions of the South, we learn that the number of destitute persons in Virginia are, White 2,500, Black 2,500; North Carolina, White 3,000, Black 2,000; South Carolina, White 5,000, Black 5,000; Florida, White 500, Black 1,000; Georgia, White 7,500, Black 5,000; Alabama, White 10,000, Black 5,000; Tennessee, White 1,000, Black 1,000; Mississippi, White 1,862, Black 2,038; Arkansas, White 1,000, Black 500; Louisiana, White 300, Black 200, making a total of nearly 60,000 persons, in the States named, utterly destitute, and for whom Government aid is asked. This is indeed a sad picture, and especially in a section where want has been hitherto unknown.

If the Northern people were in a condition to reason, they could see that it is the reckless legislation of Congress, for the past two years, which has not only produced this destitution, but has kept the South in a state of productive inaction, which must tell ultimately on the national credit. They cannot understand this until it is brought home to their own doors, which the sages of the North see coming in the shape of bankruptcy and repudiation.

Be it said to the credit of Congress, however, which has so little on the score of magnanimity and generosity to be credited with that one House has passed an appropriation to relieve this deplorable destitution.