Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1884 — Virginia Republicans. [ARTICLE]

Virginia Republicans.

The a Emission of the Mahone delegation to the national convention was the most important incident of last week, and may come to be regarded historically as an event. Presidential nominations follow each other in swift succession. It seems but yesterday since Garfield was nominated, and hardly more than that since everybody, except a few Ohioans, went home from Cincinnati supremely disgusted. The lost cause of one convention may triumph at the next, or still later. But had the Mahone delegation been turned out, this generation would not have recovered from the baneful effect. It was not the fate of a set of men which was at stake, but of a mighty movement—one important to the whole South, and, indeed, the whole country. Gen. Mahone represents some 30,000 Confederate soldiers. They are now Republicans, as truly so as if they had been charter members of the organization. “Readjuster” is a term of the past. Like “Copperhead,” “Locofoco,” “Hunker.” “Barnburner,” “Silver Gray,” and all that class of terms, it has no relevancy to live politics. It is true that Mahone did not get his choice for President, and that his “straightont” opponents did, but so far as concerns Virginia, that was all the better. Both factions won what they were really after. Dezendorf was working in the interest of Blaine, while Mahone outlined his chief object when he said, “I have been working four years to get into the Republican party and have got there at last.” There is no good reason why the Republicans of that State should not be entirely harmonious hereafter, at least until after election, and harmony will insure victory. That the Republican party will henceforth number amcijg its members tens of thousands of Confederates is a fact of almost inconceivable significance. This result was not brought about by squabble for office. o The Readjusters came out from the Democracy on a local issue which was wholly impersonal. Whether right or wrong on that issue is no longer of any consequence. Hairing separated from the Bourbons on a question of public import and gone by a natural process of growth over to the Republican party, there is no danger of a relapse. Henceforth Virginia is to have two parties, divided substantially as parties are divided in the North, and not on the color line. Danville will not be repeated.

We expect Virginia to be a Republican State under this new political readjustment, but however that may be, it is morally certain that it will be a Northern State. In other words, if it goes Democratic, it will do so for the same reason that New Jersey does, or I any other Northern State is liable some times to do, namely, because a majority of the people voting lean that way. and not, as in Mississippi, South Carolina, and other Southern States, because the shot-gun is mightier than the ballot , Mabone now has a following and support large enough to prevent any further outbreak, on any considerable scale, of political massacre.. If an. honest majority of the citizens of Virginia are Democrats, then let them have the electoral college and thevoffices and welcome. It is a measureless comfort to know that progress is being ' made in the redemption of the South : from terrorism. The Old Dominion i has set an example which cannot fail to have a great weight throughout the South in encouraging the progressive i white"element to make a stand against I the policy of blood which began at,

I Mem phis' nearly (wentf ligof and 1 would seem from Copiah to have lost ; none of its popularity with the average .Southern Democrat. With avast Republican army recruited as volunteers from the ex-Confederate ranks in one Southern State it is reasonable to expect in the course of the next four years a general movement in the same direction, and that the grand phalanx from Virginia is only an earnest of what the future has in store for the Republican party of the South.— Inter Ocean. j I i '