American politics (non-partisan) from the beginning to date

by Thomas V. Cooper; Hector T. Fenton

That we are apparently so near to the consummation of reconstruction we are greatly indebted to President Grant’s kind offices. The State was in a dilemma; it wanted a constitution; but the one made for it has at least two very objectionable features. We felt that we were suffering in all our material interests by staying out of the Union, and yet to go in under the constitution with all its provisions would have been worse.

The Gordian knot was happily cut by the President’s first message to Congress and the prompt response of that body. Up to this time the conduct of the administration has been liberal, and if the same policy is pursued hereafter it ought to have the hearty support of this State. If we cast dead issues behind us and look only to that line of conduct which shall restore quiet and confidence, and encourage enterprise and industry, we shall even see the country richer and more prosperous than it has ever been.

This movement in 1869 accomplished the restoration of our State under the expurgated constitution and gave us representation here in the persons of my colleague and ex-Senator Lewis. We were relieved of military government, became rehabilitated in our sovereignty, with entire control of our local autonomy. Thus, for a period, Virginia seemed to be enjoying the full freedom of her long-deferred hope for peace.

In the curious panoramic exhibition of my colleague I next appear as a candidate for governor in 1877. To be a candidate in Virginia is a privilege which every qualified voter may constitutionally exercise, and in that year there were three prominent candidates other than those named by the Senator. Two of them had been major-generals and one a brigadier-general. What an omission! Shades of departed glory defend us! when a United States Senator of the Bourbon persuasion can omit imposing titles in detailing events with which they were intimately associated. ’Tis true I was not nominated, lacking forty votes of a certain majority of a convention composed of over fourteen hundred delegates against a combination of five candidates, one of whom my colleague preferred, that preference perhaps being based upon motives as unselfish as are usual in veteran politicians and office-holders.

Mr. President, I can scarcely hope, in the presence of this body, where my colleague has served for many years, and where the altitude of his statesmanship frowns contemptuously down upon all who would aspire to reach its summit, to attain the awful diffidence with which I should undertake to correct any of his statements. He is one of the conscript fathers of the Senate, old in all its ways and usages; and long absence from his constituency and perpetual service to the national democratic party in helping to organize its numerous defeats make him forgetful of recent events in Virginia. Hence the necessity of my attempting to inform him as to certain matters of recent history at home.

“The next event,” says my colleague, “was that the readjusters separated themselves from the democratic party;” and after treating this at some length he says, “This brings us down to what is called Mozart Hall convention,” in which, he adds, “I spoke of the conservative party as though I belonged to it.”

Mr. President, I confess my inability to understand all this curious mixture of the odds and ends of my colleague’s scrap-book. He parades his facts in curiously-contrived array. He empties his ill-assorted jewels of information and “chunks of wisdom,” and seems to rely upon Senators to give them that consecutive arrangement as to fact and date which they have, possibly, in his own great mind. But, sir, the fact is there was no remarkable incident in Virginia politics between the election of 1877 and 1879, the month of February of the latter year being, the date of the assembling of the Mozart Hall convention. Certainly until February, 1879, there was no change in the status of parties in Virginia within that period. There was no organization of readjusters until February, 1879, and there was no declared democratic party until 1880.

This brings me, Mr. President, to a period when I propose to do more than follow my colleague in his half-way candid and nearly always inaccurate statement. It is at this juncture, he says, that Mr. Riddleberger and I are so much identified that he cannot separate us. It is at this point the organization of the readjusters begins; and it is at this point he appears to seek to make an impression wholly unwarranted by any act of the readjusters in Virginia. It is at this point, too, Mr. President, that I am constrained by a sense of duty to my people, my State, and myself to treat the question of our State debt as it presents itself in Virginia. In doing this, I wish it distinctly understood that I hold this to be a matter belonging exclusively to the State of Virginia, and I should repel any Federal interference with this as I would with any other question of mere State concern. I shall presume upon the indulgence of Senators because they have heard but one side, and that more than once, and I know they will be willing to hear a defense of Virginia against unjust attacks from those who ought to be her defenders.

Sir, there is not a fact upon which to base any one of the statements or arguments of my colleague. Instead of the Mozart Hall convention being held to effect a repeal of an irrepealable contract, it was a body of people assembled on a call of members of the General Assembly opposed to what is known in Virginia as the “brokers’ bill.” They assembled before that bill had passed either House of the General Assembly, and, coming fresh from the people, expressed their unqualified disapproval of that measure. It was apparent the measure was to pass, and organized opposition began. But, Mr. President, this is neither the beginning nor the end of this question. It was in 1871 that the first funding bill was enacted, and this we know in Virginia as the first contract.

I will not go into the details of this measure, as I shall ask the clerk to read a review of all the Virginia funding acts before concluding my remarks. It is my purpose now only to notice the speeches of Senators, notably that of my colleague, in this Chamber. It will be news to Senators to hear to-day that the readjusters never repealed either of the funding contracts. That enacted and only partially executed in 1866–’67 was in effect repealed by the Assembly which passed it, and the work of repeal was consummated by the Legislature that enacted the more obnoxious measure of 1871. This in turn was repealed by the Assembly of 1872, the propounder of the repeal measure being the present lieutenant-governor of the State, subsequently in full fellowship with the alleged debt-payers. Indeed this measure was so obnoxious that Governor Walker, who was conceded to be its author, subsequently urged that the Federal Government should assume the debts of the Southern States.