Valley Spirit

In the Intelligencer of June 16th, 1867, I find the proceedings of a Black Republican body which met under the false pretense of being a Temperance Convention; and I detach a few gems from the masses of verbiage, to show that Democrats, and farmers with German names, of whatever political party, cannot affiliate with such "narrow minded blockheads." Although myself one of the so-called "Stolid Dutch in the northern end of Lancaster county," I express no surprise that the epithet of stolid of "Dr. Gibbons" (whoever he may be) was received with approbation by the Convention, and that the bloodhounds of Zion present did not call him to order.

The temperance cause is a growing power; it is making progress everywhere, even among the stolid Dutch in the northern end of Lancaster county; a soil so barren that I never expected to see such good fruit grow on it.-Dr. Gibbons.

They had been told slavery was a thing of politics and not to be touched by the pulpit; but the pulpits of the North had been the main agency in working out the great revolution through which we have passed.-Rev. C. I. Thompson

There is one grand over towering question to be settled-the question of the social and political equality of all men, without distinction as to race or color. Slavery is dead, but its spirit still lives, and the spirit which would deny to the black man the equal rights and privileges with the white.-Dr. Gibbons.

The anti-slavery party was not strong until it succeeded in uniting itself with one of the great political parties of the country * * * If you show me a truly earnest temperance man I will answer for it, in almost every case, that he is a faithful and honest advocate of the political and social equality of races and classes.-Rev. C. I. Thompson.

He thought the hydra of slavery was no quite dead. If it was he wanted to know what there was to induce Congress to assemble in the midst of the dog days. He was sure they would wipe out all the crudities of Attorney General Stanberry. The temperance man he though should work in secret as did that great and good party known under the sacred title of Know-Nothing.-Wm. P. Roberts.

God has sleeted this country as the theatre on which to work out his mightiest problems.-Rev. J. C. Cromlish.

According to this, omniscience must actually work problems on a theatre; and we remember that Lincoln was removed to make room for one who, having suffered from the rebels, would play-Parsons Brownslow with them! which the amiable President would not do. This at least was the 'problem' as stated by the bloodhounds of Zion, who "had reason to believe" that the rebels "could'nt fool Andy Johnson."

Here all moral agencies are to war against evil. Such being the case there have been but two political parties permitted to exist in the past-the one party of morality, and the other party of immorality.-Rev. J. C. Cromlish.

The robbers at the State Capitol, those who whip children to death, hangers of Mrs. Surratt, Butler, Neal Dow, Stevens and Mrs. ----. (not to particularize a seduction case at Gettysburg), Sereno How, (clergyman, educator, legislator and temperance man), whoremongers and strumpets in the Treasury Department, with this small-headed Cromlish ("such being the case") bringing up the rump and rear of the so-called God-and-morality party.

The man who is immoral in one point is immoral in all; the party which advocates the continuance of one cause of immorality will be found ready to advocate all other immoralities.-Rev. J. C. Cromlish

This is according to the Sunday School dictum, that "if a boy will lie he will steal, and if he will steal he will murder." But contrary to this view, gamblers are noted for not being drunkards, and Sereno Howe was probably a strict temperance man.

J. Metzgar.

Marrietta, July 10, 1867.

THERE is one thing concerning the candidates for the Supreme Bench should not be lost sight of by the citizens of this State. Judge Sharswood is "native and to the manor born," having first seen the light in the old Keystone State, and is a true Pennsylvanian. He has been identified with the interests of our commonwealth and her people from his birth, and has always served them well. On the other hand, Judge Williams is but an importation, hailing from New England. Were all other things equal this consideration alone would decide the balance in favor of Judge Sharswood. Let us honor our own. Let it not be said that Pennsylvania sets aside the claims of her own sons, when their talents and abilities are needed.

Mr. Henry W. Bennett, of Davenport, Iowa, sends us a respectful letter, and it shall receive a respectful reply. We had occasion some days since, while commenting upon the meeting of Congress, to speak our mind of an association known as "The Grand Army of the Republic." We spoke with severity, because we felt the occasion had arrived for a severe expression of opinion. We understand the Grand Army of the Republic to be a secret society, composed of persons calling themselves discharged soldiers of the army, with the purpose of taking part in politics. Mr. Bennett rather denies this, but we are not satisfied with his denial. We scarcely ever can take up a certain class of Western papers without finding that some "Post" of the G. A. R. has had a meeting, and resolved that everything is going wrong, and that nothing will go right until some are hanged and everybody has a confiscated farm.

In the first place, we call this organization unrepublican. Secret associations for social purposes, to aid in charity, or to develope virtue and friendship, are very well. They rarely interfere with anybody. If people find amusements in meeting in guarded rooms, and wearing spangled dresses, and calling themselves sachems, and brothers, and comrades, soldiers of Gideon and sons of Rechab, it is their own business.-We may doubt their taste, but a man's tastes concerns only himself. When a secret society goes beyond the offices of charity and friendship, it takes no root in America. These men combine for political purposes. They propose to keep alive the wrath and bitterness of that dreadful time. They mean to control conventions to nominate men for office-to perpetuate in our civil system the bitterness of war. We believe the soldier should receive abundant reward. When a soldier and a civilian apply for office, all things else being equal, we should prefer the soldier. But we dislike this making a privilege class, and especially we dislike this getting into a corner, and having passwords and grips, and making an exclusive class. Washington foresaw this when he opposed the Society of the Cincinnati. He saw in that association the first step toward an aristocracy, and he declined to ally himself with it.-What Washington said should be remembered now. Here is an association more numerous and more powerful than the Cincinnati, which proposes to ever keep alive a war with brothers and fellow-countrymen, to exult in victories over Americans, to rejoice over the destruction of men in whose blue veins runs the blood which courses in our own, and who, whatever their crimes or errors, are of our own country. We say, let all the fearful memories of the past sink into the hell to which they belong; let us think only of wounds to be healed, of harvests to grow again, of seas once more covered with our commerce, education for the ignorant, protection to the oppressed, justice to all.

There are crafty, bold, bad men who look upon these societies as so many instruments for their own advancement. They propose to ally themselves with this military sentiment, with no more claim upon it than Thenardier in Hugo's novel had to be called the Sergeant of Waterloo. He followed the army, and robbed the bodies of the slain. The true soldier sheathes his sword and buries it in his closet, and it remains an heirloom. He becomes a citizen, and makes no claim for political honor but that of citizenship. Above all these things he does not carry his epaulets and ribbons, his wounds and bruises to a political convention, to be knocked down to the highest bidder. There may be many of these men unwittingly in this Army of the Republic, who probably entered with the views of Mr. Bennett. They will soon see how they may better occupy their time.

Especially do we entertain these views when we find the declarations of these secret soldier associations so many expressions of madness. The true soldier is the most generous of foemen. Take the great captains who commanded the contending hosts. Do we find Grant, or Sherman, or Sheridan, or Thomas, or Meade, assembling or howling for more blood, more strife, more bitterness? Do we find Lee, or Longstreet, or Johnson, or Beauregard insisting that the hates of secession shall be prolonged? These men fought their fight and ended. Their anger ceased with the echo of the last guns fired in anger.

From this Grand Army of the Republic now parading through conventions in the West, commanded by the captains of the caucus, the lobby, and bar room, we appeal to the Grand Army of the Republic which carried our banners over a hundred fields under the eye of Grant, Sherman and Sheridan. We denounce this new secret association as out of sympathy with the true Republican party, and as inimical to the Constitution and the Union, It will be a sad day for our party when soldiers find no better work than to prowl over the battle-fields of the past, and dig up the slain. The country wants peace, and rest, and harmony, and justice. These men want a distracted country that offices may be gained. They would make America a Mexico, peace would be sent to sleep with Turks and infidels, and, instead of Union, they would "the wofullest division make that ever fell upon this cursed earth."

On the 19th Sumner introduced a bill to strike the word "white" out of all the naturalization laws, wherever they occur, in order that foreign-born negroes could be naturalized. He said he had received a letter from Norfolk reciting the cases of foreign-born colored persons who could not be naturalized under the laws as they now stand.-Good Lord, where will all this negro frenzy terminate? There are perhaps less than a dozen foreign-born darkies in this country-the slave trade having ceased in 1808, sixty years ago, and no negroes have come into the country in any other way-and yet all the laws must be altered to enable those few barbarians, who are now certainly in their second childhood, a chance to shove a Radical ballot! What next? After this surely monkeys, apes, baboons, ourang outangs and gorillas must be given the suffrage, passed through a lightning process of naturalization and taught the trick of voting a Radical ticket.