830 



VIRGINIA. 



in its infancy, only commenced a few years 

 since, and in many instances not followed up 

 with intelligence and energy. 



Fruits are not generally profitable in the 

 State, except apples in Piedmont and in the 

 Valley. 



Cotton is taking hold and extending itself 

 farther north in the counties south of James 

 River, in Tidewater. It is probable that the 



Eeople of this section can make more money 

 om this crop than from any other crop, if 

 they will take care to avoid the error that 

 many planters have committed, of not raising 

 corn enough to serve them, and of cultivating 

 too much land in cotton not well fertilized and 

 not well cultivated. The cotton raised in Vir- 

 ginia is found to be of excellent quality, and 

 there seems every inducement to continue and 

 to extend this industry. 



POLITICAL. In July Mr. Massey announced 

 himself as a candidate for Congressman-at- 

 large, in opposition to Senator Mahone and the 

 Readjusters, in a letter in which his position 

 is thus denned : 



For several years past, the settlement of the State 

 debt, and other questions incidental to it, have ab- 

 sorbed so much of the attention of the people of Vir- 

 ginia, that they have given comparatively Tittle atten- 

 tion to Federal affairs. These were not political 

 questions. The most stalwart Democrats and the 

 most stalwart Republicans divided and took directly 

 opposite positions upon them. The men of each side 

 were, no doubt, equally honest each acting in ac- 

 cordance with his honest convictions of right. Nei- 

 ther Democrats nor Republicans were less Democrats 

 or less Eepublicans because of their being either 

 Readjusters or Funders. 



The leaders of both the Readjuster party and the 

 Funder party were Democrats ; and each appealed to 

 Republicans to co-operate with them in the settlement 

 of the State debt and other questions of State policy, 

 assuring them that by doing so they in nowise sac- 

 rificed their political affiliations or principles. 



These questions, upon which both political parties 

 were divided, are now settled, so far as legislation can 

 settle them. 



Thus, the questions which separated men of the 

 same political party from, and arrayed them against, 

 each other having been settled, no partition-wall or 

 dividing line stands between them. 



I need scarcely inform you, mv fellow-citizens, that 

 1 first formulated and enunciated the principles of re- 

 adjustment, and that I have stood firmly and un- 

 swervingly by those principles at all times, in all 

 places, and under all circumstances, from an honest 

 conviction of right and duty. These facts are well 

 known to all. 



I was, however, a Virginian and a Democrat be- 

 fore the question of readjustment ever arose, and my 

 advocacy of readjustment never lessened my devotion 

 to my State or changed my political principles. 



When Senator Hill and 'others criticised so severe- 

 ly what they supposed would be the course of Gen- 

 eral Mahone in tne Senate of the United States, be- 

 fore he had given a vote, I disapproved their course 

 and censured them for it. 



And when General Mahone repelled these attacks, 

 declared he was a "better Democrat" than his assail- 

 ants, and asserted his independence of caucus dicta- 

 tion, I applauded him for it. 



I did not suppose it possible that he who had al- 

 ways boasted of his Democracy, and who had but a 

 short time before sworn that the vote of Virginia 

 should " never be cast for Garfield," had even then 

 formed an alliance with the Republican party, and 



would soon after be devising a plan for handing the 

 whole State over to Arthur in exchange for the Fed- 

 eral patronage in Virginia. 



Under the banner of liberalism and opposition to 

 rings and cliques, he has inaugurated the most au- 

 tocratic rule; displaying more intolerance of other 

 me^'s rights of thought, speech, and action, and re- 

 quired more servile submission to his will and author- 

 ity, than was ever before witnessed among any free 

 people. Under the popular cry of equal rights for all 

 the people ? and opposition to monopolies, he so 

 shaped legislation that, but for the sagacity, the pa- 

 triotism, the honesty, and the independence of the 

 noble "Big Four," equal rights would now be but an 

 empty name, and the very term a mockery ; and the 

 aggregate power of all monopolies concentrated in his 

 hands a bit in each man's mouth, while he held the 

 reins and the whip. 



The four Senators, A. M. Ly brook, B. F. Will- 

 iams, P. Gr. Hale, and S. H. Newberry, in an 

 address to the people of the State, explained 

 their course as follows : 



We, the undersigned, members of the Virginia Sen- 

 ate, and of what was once the Readjuster party, claim 

 that we discharged our whole duty, so far as we were 

 permitted so to do, in the settlement of the public 

 debt, in compliance with our pledges to our respective 

 constituencies. Having done this, the main object of 

 our trust was accomplished. 



But we soon learned, from the acts of the caucus 

 and the leaders of the party, that an honest settle- 

 ment of the State debt upon the terms and according 

 to our repeated promises to the people was not the 

 real object ot the self-constituted leaders of the party, 

 but that the result of the November election was to 

 be used to establish a dishonorable spoils system un- 

 known in the political history of this State; that 

 every right of the people was to be prostituted to the 

 success of a dangerous centralized power in the hands 

 of one man and his chosen friends ; that to accomplish 

 this purpose the courts were to be deprived of their 

 co-ordinate authority, and made subservient to a cen- 

 tral Executive and partisan Legislature j the common 

 schools were to be converted into political agencies ; 

 the right of the people to elect their own officers was 

 in a measure to be taken from them, and other here- 

 tofore unknown and dangerous measures were to be 

 inaugurated. To accomplish these purposes, a de- 

 gradino- and tyrannical caucus system was enforced by 

 rules degrading to those who were forced by the party 

 lash to adopt it insulting to their manhood, and a 

 betrayal of the public trust confided to them by the 

 people. The ultimate object of all this was to get 

 control of the whole political power of the State, and 

 hand it over to the daring leader of the party, to be 

 utilized by him to advance his ambitious personal 

 schemes ; and it was all to be done quickly, and be- 

 fore the people could be warned of the danger. They, 

 through their faithless representatives, were to _be 

 converted into a new political party, with new prin- 

 ciples and doctrines, all for the special benefit ot the 

 leader and his friends. We, foreseeing the tendency 

 of these measures, alarmed at the impending danger 

 refusing all offers of place or profit as the price of 

 a betrayal of the trust confided in us conscious ot 

 the rectitude of our motives determined to use every 

 effort to thwart these measures. 



An address was issued by the other Read- 

 juster members of the Legislature and the 

 State officers, which denounced the four Sen- 

 ators as unfaithful to the pledges implied in 

 their election, and claimed that the measures 

 sought to be passed were proper and benefi- 

 cial. Massey received the support of the Dem- 

 ocrats, whose State Committee declared in his 

 favor. The straightout Republicans placed in 



