Valley Virginian

In domestic happiness, the wife's influence is much greater than the husband's; for the one, the first cause--mutual love and confidence--being granted, the whole comfort of the household depends upon trifles more immediately under her jurisdiction. By her management of small sums her husband's respectability and credit are created or destroyed. No fortune can stand the constant leakages of extravagance and mismanagement; and more is spent in trifles than woman would easily believe. The one great expense, whatever it may be, is turned over and carefully reflected on ere incurred; the income is prepared for it; but it is pennies imperceptibly sliding away that do the mischief; and this the wife alone can stop, for it does not come within a man's province. There is often an unsuspected trifle to be saved in every household. It is not in economy alone that the wife's attention is so necessary, but in those little niceties which mark a well regulated household. An unfurnished cruet stand, a missing key, a buttonless shirt, a soiled tablecloth, mustard pot with its old contents sticking hard and brown about it, are severally nothing; but each can raise an angry word and cause discomfort. Depend on it, there's a great deal of domestic happiness in a well-dressed mutton chop or a tidy breakfast-table. Men grow sated of beauty, tired of music and often too wearied for conversation, (however intellectual;) but they can always appreciate a well spent hearth and smiling comfort. A woman may love her husband devotedly--may sacrifice fortune, friends, family and country for him--she may have the genius of a Sappho, the enchanting beauties of an Armida; but--melancholy fact--if with these she fail to make his home comfortable, his heart will inevitably escape her. And women live so entirely in their affections that without love there existence is a void. Better submit, then, to household tasks, however repugnant they may be to your tastes, than doom yourself to a loveless home. Women of a higher order of mind will not run this risk; they know that they are feminine, their domestic are their first duties.

The National Union Convention has met and adjourned, after a most harmonious session of four days. Though some things in the proceedings of the Convention, and in the platform which was adopted, may be distasteful to the South, yet upon the whole, it was practically a political success, beyond the expectations of its most sanguine well-wisher. The ludicrous humbug of the delegations from South Carolina and Massachusetts entering the Convention arm and arm, will excite a smile of contempt throughout the South, where humbugs and buncomb are at a discount; but we have seen too much of the bogus sentimentalism of our northern brethren not to believe that their gushing and impressible natures will be moved, not only to admiration, but to [unclear] by the beautiful idea, so touchingly typified, of the two extremes of the lately warring sections, locked in fraternal and [unclear] embrace, with all the world as smiling or tearful spectators. But if South Carolina wants to hug Massachusetts, it is their own business, not ours.

While acquiescing in and sustaining this great movement, so far as we can consistently, there are other and far more important matters for the Southern people to attend to. As far as the so-called National politics of the country are concerned, we have no business dabbling in them, only in so far as to let our Conservative friends North know, as we have just done, that we are with them, heart and soul, in their efforts to overthrow the worst enemies a country ever had, the Radicals. As to the best means to accomplish that much desired object, the Conservatives North have decided upon them in this Convention, and as they make the [unclear] it is as little [unclear] their hands. The prosperity of the whole country now is to be based upon the defeat of the Radical party. The only hope we [section unclear].

[Section unclear]. Not that politics have been the cure of the South [unclear] and the very exclusion of the Representatives from Congress by the Radicals may be a blessing to us in disguise. It forced our attention to be turned toward commerce, and the recuperation of our county shows the result. The battle between Conservatism and Radicalism, between free government and despotism, is to be waged on Northern soil. We are but lookers on, and our only duty is to work at home; to develop every home interest; to make the negroes see we are their best friends, by our consideration, good judgement and kindness, and thereby make them useful to us and themselves.

The duties of the Southern people are so clear that it is [paragraph unclear].

To be truly independent and a power on this Continent, and in this Government the South must change [unclear]. We must bring our children up as mechanics, as tradesmen, and as workers in every department of business. We must devote our superior intelligence to the daily business of life; we must develop our great resources and build our railroads; we must throw away false pride and, by being what God made us to be, we can in ten years transcend better [unclear] our sufferings than the imagination of the [unclear] ever conceived in the three words; think, work, hope, He our only worldly salvation.

On the 14th, this Convention met in the grand Wigwam at Philadelphia. Every State and Territory was represented and the utmost harmony prevailed. It was the most immense gathering of people ever seen in Philadelphia and everything passed off harmoniously, contrary to the expectations and some of the hopes of the radicals.

The Convention adjourned on Thursday last after adopting unanimously the following declaration of principles, of which our people are fully competent to judge for themselves. The rest of the proceedings, the speeches, the address, the buzzing for the Union, "Dixie" &c. the South Carolina and Massachusetts delegates walking into the Convention arm in arm, and all the stuff and tomfoolery usually attendant on such occasions, amount to so little that we do not care to bore our readers with it.

Here are the principles which comprise all we should care about.

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES.

The National Union Convention, now assembled in the City of Philadelphia, composed of delegates from every State and Territory in the Union, admonished by the solemn lessons which for the last five years it has pleased the Supreme Ruler of the Universe to give the American people, profoundly grateful for the return of peace, desirous as are a large majority of their countrymen in all sincerity to forget and forgive the past, revering the Constitution as it comes to us from our ancestors, regarding the Union in its restoration as more sacred than ever, looking with deep anxiety into the future of instant and continuing trial, hereby issues and proclaims the following declaration, principles and purposes, on which they have, with perfect unanimity, agreed:

1st: We hail with gratitude to Almighty God the end of the war and the return of peace to an afflicted and beloved land.

2d: The war just elected has maintained the authority of the Constitution, with all the powers which it confers, and all the restrictions which it imposes upon the General Government, unabridged and unaltered, and it has preserved the Union with the equal rights, dignity and authority of the States perfect and unimpaired.

3d: Representation in the Congress of the United States and the Electoral College is a right recognized by the Constitution as abiding in every State, and a duty imposed upon its people--fundamental in its nature and essential to the existence of our republican institutions, and neither Congress nor the General Government has any authority or power to deny this right to any State or withhold its enjoyment under the Constitution for the people thereof.

4th: We call upon the people of the United States to elect to Congress, as members thereof, none but men who admit fundamental right of representation, and who will receive to seats therein loyal representatives from every State in allegiance to the United States, subject to the Constitutional right of each House to judge of the election returns, and qualifications of its own members.

5th: The Constitution of the United States, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, are "the supreme law of the land anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." All the power not conferred by the Constitution upon the General Government, nor prohibited by the State is "reserved to the States or to the people thereof," and among the rights thus reserved to the States is the right to prescribe qualifications for the elective franchise therein, with which right Congress can interfere. No State or combination of States has the right to withdraw from the Union or to exclude, through their action in Congress or otherwise, any other State or States from the Union. The Union of these States is perpetual.

6th: Such amendments to the Constitution of the United States may be made by the people themselves as they may deem expedient, but only in the mode [unclear] out by its provisions; and in [unclear] such amendments, whether by Congress or by a Convention, and ratifying the same, all the States of the Union [unclear] equal and an indivisible right to a voice and a vote therein.

7th: Slavery is abolished and forever prohibited, and [section unclear]. or within the jurisdiction of the United States and the [unclear] in all the States of the Union should receive in common with all their inhabitants equal protection of every right of person and property.

8th. Which we regard as utterly invalid and never to be assumed or made a binding force any obligation incurred or undertaken in making war against the United States, we hold the debt of the nation to be sacred and inviolable; and we proclaim our purpose, in discharging this, as in pertaining all other national obligations to maintain, unimpaired, and unimpeached, the honor and the faith of the [unclear].

9th: It is the duty of the National Government to recognize the sacrifices of the Federal soldier and sailors in the contest just closed, by meeting promptly and fully their just and righteous claims to the services they have rendered the nation, and by extending to those of them who have survived, and to the widows and orphans of those who have fallen, the most generous and considerate care.

10th: In Andrew Johnson, President of the United States who, in his great office, has proved steadfast in his devotion to the Constitution, the laws and interests of his country, unmoved by persecution and undeserved reproach--having faith unassailable in the people and in the principle of free government--we recognize a Chief Magistrate worthy of the nation and equal to the great crisis upon which his lot is cast, and we tender to him, in the discharge of his high and responsible duties, our profound respect and assurance of our cordial and sincere support.

When the secretary read the section declaring that the war left all the rights of the States "perfect and unimpaired," the entire convention rose to its feet and spent some time in cheering the sentiment. The allusion to President Johnson was also received with loud and continued applause.

The vote was then taken on the adoption of the resolution as read, and they were unanimously adopted.