Valley Spirit

The result of the late election in this State was a surprise to both parties, the disappointment of the Republicans being fully as great as that of the Democrats. The Democrats were confident of success from the fact that the Republican leaders were divided in sentiment on the question of reconstruction, and the Republicans were despondent for the same reason. What then could have been the cause of a result differing so widely from general expectation?

We confess this question is more easily asked than answered, but still, by a little careful thought bestowed upon the political situation previous to the election, we think the philosophy of the result will appear obvious. The division of sentiment among the leaders of the Republican party and their hostility to the reconstruction policy of the President from which so much was expected, was a false foundation upon which to build hopes of success for the reason that the issue between them and the President was not sufficiently developed to affect this election. Instead of meeting the issue boldly and manfully like honest men they shirked it like cowards, and carefully concealed it from the masses by feigning a support of the President which they did not feel. The consequence was they preserved the unity of their party which marched to the polls on Tuesday a week and voted as solidly as it did a year ago. This was precisely the result the leaders intended to produce by their feigned endorsement of Johnson, and was the principal cause of the want of success on the party of the Democracy.

Another reason for the defeat of the Democracy is to be found in the apathy and indifference which seemed to exist in the heavy Democratic counties. In these counties there was nothing in the local contests to bring the voters to the polls, the majorities being so large as to insure the success of the Democratic local tickets without an effort, and the election of two unimportant State officers was not considered of sufficient importance to justify the masses of laboring men, of whom the Democratic party is mainly composed, to leave their work to attend the election. Whilst the Democracy was careless and inactive, making no special effort to get out the vote of the party, our enemies as usual were indefatigable in their efforts, by means of their secret leagues and the corrupting influences of money, to pull their full vote.

But, notwithstanding we are defeated, there is no cause for despondency. The noble old Democratic party still lives and is destined, eventually, to triumph over all its enemies, and to deliver the country from the perils into which it has been plunged by the misrule and corruption of the fanatical leaders who control the Republican party. They have simply postponed the day of their utter defeat and discomfiture by artfully dodging an issue with the President and the Democratic party which they must meet during the next session of Congress. Had Congress met three months ago so that the impending issue between the radicals and the President could have been fully developed and intelligibly understood by the masses previous to the election, the result undoubtedly would have been quite different.

The election itself was of no political importance apart from the influence which some supposed it might have on President Johnson adverse to the working out of his wise and statesman like policy for the speedy restoration of the Southern States to their Constitutional relations to the Government. But as he has had the firmness and patriotism to inaugurate the policy in spite of the clamors of the radical crew led by Sumner, Stevens & Co., and in the very teeth of their declarations of war against his administration, we may confidently hope that he will have decision enough, in the consciousness of the right, to adhere to it.

The radical leaders imagine that they have gained a point on the President and can now compel him to recede from the high and noble ground he has assumed towards the southern people, but we opine the sequel will show that they have mistaken their man. If we have read the character of President Johnson aright, he is not the man to be coerced or intimidated from a wise and patriotic purpose by a set of mad zealots and fanatical revolutionists. He can retort upon them by saying: "My policy of restoration was not on trial in your late elections, or if it was, it was unanimously endorsed by the people. Your party endorsed it in your State Conventions, the Democratic party endorsed it in theirs, and why should I now recede from a policy which has thus been unanimously endorsed by the representatives of the people of all parties?" Thus it will be seen that the radicals will at once be estopped in their efforts to influence the President on this score by their own dishonesty and duplicity during the late canvass.

To the Democrats of Franklin county we would say, buckle on your armor to renew the contest. Never tire in well doing.-Though you have again been defeated, there is no cause for discouragement. Preserve your organizasation intact. Labor in season and out of season for the dissemination, among your neighbors of the sound constitutional principles of the noble, tried and time-honored old party to which you belong. The Democracy has survived many disasters and it will survive this one. It is founded on the immutable principles of truth, and

"Truth crushed to earth will rise again."

Those who imagine that the Democratic party is dead are hugging a delusive phantom to their bosoms. It is as imperishable as the everlasting hills. Its principles are the principles of the Constitution, and it can never die while there is a free government to save. Already the seeds of dissolution in the Republican ranks are plainly visible. All the Democracy have to do is to stand firm and the hour of our triumph will surely come. Let the sentiment of the party everywhere be: "Defeated but not dismayed."

Under instructions from President Johnson, General Grant yesterday issued orders to muster out of the federal service all that remain of the colored troops. By the time Congress meets there will be a solitary negro under arms in the country.

This should be considered good news, North and South, as it marks an important epoch in the history of the pacification of the country. Apart from the unnecessary drain upon the Federal treasury for their maintenance, these negro troops were a source of special social disturbance at the South. Their presence galled and irritated the whites, while they fostered insolence and idleness among the freed negroes. The disbandment of these troops will do more to pacify the South than any other single act of President Johnson.

After the negroes are got rid of there will yet remain seventy-five thousand white troops in service. It is the intention of the President to reduce this number to fifty thousand as soon as it is practicable.

The disbanding of the immense armies of the North and South within the space of five months will be justly regarded hereafter as one of the marvels of history. In no other country than the United States would it have been possible. Not a little of the credit for this miracle justly attaches to the wise and conciliatory policy of President Johnson.

The numerous statements which purport to prove the moral and intellectual aptitude of the emancipated slaves may be dismissed as simply incredible. Philanthropists ought to understand that, if a liberated southern slave were readily to share in the government of the republic, he would furnish an unanswerable apology not only for the system in which he was trained, but for the slave trade on which the institution was originally founded.-Mr. Wendell Phillips himself would scarcely propose to admit a heathen African savage to the electoral booth; and experience has shown that neither missionaries nor traders can make a perceptible impression on indigenous barbarism. The distance by which the freedmen is separated from the Ashantes measures the benefits of American slavery; and if the colored population is now worthy of sovereignty, the cotton plantations must have been the most efficient schools of religion and morality which have hitherto been established on earth. A scrupulous conscience would feel the urgent duty of kidnapping the remaining population from Central Africa, to pass them through the process which has refined and sublimated their happier kinsmen beyond the Atlantic. It is not necessary to answer more seriously foolish women and effeminate rhetoricians who affect to vindicate the equality or superiority of a disgraced race. There may become anomalies in a republican system which exclude from all share of power a third of the southern population; but wise statesmen are rather anxious for results than studious of theoretical symmetry, and it is always easy to furnish sound reasons for measures which are found to be practically expedient.

Governor Morton, or Indiana, expressed very much the same idea in his recent speech, with the additional point added that if Republicans believed freedmen fit for political power without preparatory education, then were all their former arguments against slavery false, and they were moreover guilty of gaining political power by the most outrageous misrepresentations of what must have been a civilizing institution.

In truth, the advocates of universal negro suffrage at the South have no argument at all. Constitutionally they have no right to insist upon it, and practically it would be the extreme of folly. At the New York election the people will pass upon this question. We have no fear of the result.

Major General Banks was yesterday nominated for Congress by the Republican convention in the Sixth Massachusetts district.-N. Y. Tribune.

This tells the whole story! It is an [unclear] which speaks the inner purpose of the Republican party louder than all the words Mr. Thurlow Wood or Mr. Raymond can utter between now and election. We quoted largely, a day or two since, from a speech of General Banks taking the boldest possible ground against Mr. Johnson's policy of restoration. We also printed a report of his recent radical remarks at Lawrence. It is well known that at a dinner given General Banks in Boston, a week since, he proclaimed in substance that the President must take the back track. And this opponent of the executive policy of restoration is promoted to be Republican candidate for Congress under circumstances which give significance to the rebuke intended to be admistered to Mr. Johnson!

This nomination of General Banks was made under the nose of Senator Wilson, who has been imported here from Massachusetts to tell the people of New York how to vote. The senator could have given the nomination another direction had he desired, but he did not. Everybody knows how extreme is the radicalism of Wilson on he negro question; and his object is to carry the Empire State for the Republicans and so weaken the President next winter in Congress. The nomination of Banks has developed the cat under the Wilson meal.

Speech by Secretary McCullough

CINCINNATI, Oct. 13

The publishes a speech made by Secretary McCullough at Fort Wayne, Indiana, on Wednesday night, in which he gives his views on the national finances. He said he was not one of those who seemed to repudiate coin as a measure of value, and to make a sound paper currency the standard. On the contrary as belonged to that class of persons who, regarding an exclusive metalic currency as an impracticable thing among enterprising and commercial people, nevertheless look upon an irredeemable currency as an evil which circumstances may for a time render a necessity, but which is never to be sustained as a policy. By the common consent of nations gold and silver are the only true measures of value. They are the necessary regulatiors of trade. He favored a well secured paper currency. No other can to any extent be a proper substitute for coin. It is not expected that there shall be a dollar in coin in reserve for every dollar of paper in circulation this is not necessary. For all ordinary home transactions, paper currency is sufficient; but there are constantly occurring periods when the balance between countries, and in the United States, between the different sections, must be settled in coin. These balances are insignificant and would in comparison with the transactions out of which they arise, and when a vicious system of credit does not too long postpone settlements, they are arranged without disturbing the movement of coin whenever specie is needed for this purpose or for any other purpose, the paper currency of the country should be convertible into it, and a circulation not so convertible will not be, and ought not to be, tolerated by the people. The present inconvertible currency of the United States was a necessity of war, but now that the war has closed, the government should not be a borrower; the currency should be brought up to a specie standard, and he saw no way of doing it but by withdrawing a portion of it from circulation. He had no faith in a prospertiy which was the effect of a depreciated currency, nor could he see any safe path to tread but that which leads to specie payments. The extreme high prices now prevailing indicates that the business of the country is in an unhealthy condition. We are measuring values by a false standard. We have a circulating medium altogether larger than is needed for legitimate business, and the excess is used in speculations. The United States is to-day the best market in the world for foreigners to sell in. The consequence is that Europe is selling us more than she buys of us, including our securities, which ought not to go abroad, and there is a debt rolling up against us that must be settled, in part at least, in coin. The longer the inflation continues the more difficult it will be for us to get back to specie payments, to which we must return sooner or later. If Congress shall, early to the adproaching session, authorize the finding of the legal tenders, and the work of reduction is commenced and carefully and prudently carried on, we shall reach it probably without injury and embarrassment to legal business. If not, we shall have a brief period of seductive prosperity, resulting in widespread bankruptcy and disaster. He spoke of the evil tendency of the present inflation on the public morals, converting the business of the country into gambling, and seriously diminishing the labor of the country. We are apparently getting richer, when morality languishes, and the productive industry of the country is being diminished. He was hopeful that by wise legislation, we will escape a financial collapse, and that the currency may be brought to the specie standard without these financial troubles which have in all countries, followed protracted and extensive wars.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE, Jackson, Miss., Sept. 25, 1865

By an order, bearing date the 20th instant, Col. Samuel Thomas, Assistant Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau in this State, proposes to transfer to the civil authorities of the State the right to try all cases in which the right of freemen are involved, either for injuries done to their persons or property. This proposition is made, however, on condition that "the judicial officers and magistrates of the provisional government of the State will take for their mode of procedure the laws now in force in this States, except so far as those laws make a distinction on account of color, and allow negroes the same rights and privileges as are accorded to white men before their courts," by which I understand that negroes shall be allowed to testify in cases where their interest is involved. And believing that the late constitutional amendment which abolished slavery abolishes all laws which constituted a part of the policy of slvavery, and in declaring that the negro shall be protected in his person and property establishes principles which of themselves entitle the negro to sue and be sued, and, as a necessary incident of such right, that he is made competent as a witness, according to the laws of evidence of the state.

Now, therefore, I, William L. Sharkey, Provisional Governor of Mississippi, with a view of securing our citizens the rights of trial before their own officers and under their own laws, rather than by a military tribunal and by military law, do hereby proclaim and make known that in all cases civil or criminal, in which the rights of negroes are involved, either for injuries done to their persons or property or in matters of contract, the testimony of negroes may be received, subject to the common law rules of evidence as regards competency and credibility which prevail in regard to white persons. And I do, therefore, accept the proposition of Colonel Samuel Thomas, Assistant Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau of this State, and request that no freedmen's Court shall hereafter be organized, and that those already in existence be closed and instructed to transfer the cases before them to the civil authorities; and I hereby instruct all judicial officers and magistrates to act upon this subject.

Given under my hand, and the great seal of the State affixed, this day and date above written.

W.L. Sharkey.

Provisional Governor of Mississippi.