Plain Talk From Virginia

There aro none among us wlio den; that in tl; decade whioh bostest pa ■ ■ ■■! a gr vevolution has occurreil iu thia country. In 1H(() tho issue before the country was whetherthe South would Bubmitto an int.'iilict upon the extrusión of slavery iato the Territorios of the Unicm. Xo-rlay fcherc is no slavery nnywhere. Manii'estly, therefore, there has boen a preat ohasge. Slavery is abolithed in all Htates and Territories uliko. Noria this all ; the emancipatcd slaves voto and sit in oor Legislaturas. We who ure ili -; today - the men of ttsa gfmenUion- -tho actors in thin year, 1871,111 the ihanrathat is uctually in proyross- we aro oonfronted by these fucts. Tbat is the environment - the "situation. " Thei'acts ase adlnittd to be irreversible. No BMM uim hopos to reverse tliero. We aio nuw ]i. '.red to entertain the question, " Shall we aceupt the situation'r" It would be just as pertinent to ask, ' Shall we accept the L'raneo-Prussian war?" ar "Shall w accept oa earthquuke wbioh is past, or a drought or a freshet ? " It doesn'tmake auy ditferencc whethor we "accept " them or not. The} donot pauso toiiscertain uur wishes. The; re inetfaceable foot-prints in tho maro] of destiny - the regÍBtexed odict of the Al inighty in tho evolutíon of the uni. and we shall not have tho caso rc-openod chafo and fret we never so much. ïhe world (as we sec it) is full of ovil there is pain and trouble and anguish ev erywhere ; it would have been ar mor ■ ablü for everythiiig to have beei pleasant - to have had a round of novcr onding delightful sensations, nevor to hav been thwarted in anything ; to have hac no peiüfl of tbis or a future life ; but it i not so ; there is inünitely more of traged; thim of comedy in the human drauia ; am - why, thero is nothiug to be.douo bu " accept the situation." There ale som obstinate i'olks that take the ground tha i'lu'y did not make thcmselves, and sweB that aethe; ware pul here without thei eonsentjthey will not " accept the situa tiou." These are moral Bourbons, whos oducation must bo adjourned t' anothe forum. Uut tho bulk of mankind lean quickly to reeognize and respect the mor al constitution of tho world, and to con forra their conduct to tho distempered con ditions by which they are gurrounded. In social and politica! matten, howevei many seek to gratity their gpiteful fee] ings under an unpleasant eavitonntOD by nursing the illusion that: obstin.-iy i principie. The oourso aL üie world doe not suit them. a-vi cef use to subnii toit; and tlioy eall their kicking agains the sides of liie iron leviathan wliic ílows the greut. ucean af history - principie. There is a st&go in the conree of politieal dTonta wheu iippositioii is 110 longcr a wise treatment. And it is jast hen that onO can rocognize the trm: i.-alization of statesmanship. Your genuine Jacobite never surrenders. He remambers in 1745 Sidtiuy Godolphin and the Stuarts - and iie dus nrotesting that he will never recegnize the house of Han over. Now, wc admire ibis fealty to ideas, but there is a Baw in it justhere - that a msn-ought tohavs sonse as-vull aspersistence. There are, as we have s;iil, stages in politics when wc must write new legenda upon our bannen, and work, not to recover past, but to obtain the mastership over the future. It is not an abandoiiinnt o principie ; fealty to political dogmas coases to be right when the causo which lent them their gignifioanoe and their vitality bas peiished. We might as woll in the nincteenth century undertake to revive the issues of the Greeks and Romans. What have we to do with the battli - o our fathers onder othei conditions and dnta thut have utteily vanished from the problem as now subiuitted ? The problem of our day is how to arrest Utfi opnrae qL the Röjmhliaan purty. The problema oi' 1S71 are not tlie issues of 1861. The detachmcnt that mancuvers on the issues of IStH to-day is out of the fight altogether. It is of no more valué to us who have to defend the points now attacked thun the co-operation of the ghosts of our departcd friends who feil at (iettysburg and Missionary liidgo. We ai-e not fighting for alavery ; it is gone ; we aro not iighting for that State sovereignty which our fathere pleadfor;it is sabverted ; we are not iighting for the Constitution as it was expoundod in the resolutions of 1798-9 ; there is no Buoh living document ; we are not iighting against tlie Bayna-UndeTWOod Constitution ; wo are not fighting against the fourteenth and iifteenth ainendments ; they have pasaed iuto the eetablished law of the )and, only respectable by the oo-opcration of three-i'ourths of the States; the the contest is not here ; our oontesi is to stop; stop where we are; to arrest the chango which ia going ou in the charaoter of the government; to pluck, as a brand from the burning, the blaokened parchment of the Constitution ; to preserve at least the life of the States. Our object is to wrcvst the administrátion of the government from the authors of the Ku-Klux bill, and to turnit over to those who will administei what is left of the Constitution in the spirit of its framers. We may not. cancel Üia work of tli' ten years, but we may give diroction and form to the next decade. It is our duty, and the díctate of calm good sense to work en the fabrie of our government and our society as we iind it ; to the biest of things;.to keep them in the best possiblo ehannels : it is not our business to strive after Utopia ; to cry over what belongs to bistory. If we suppose that there i no good left in the world, and no work for cur hands to do on this thoatei of & incrican sociology and American politics, our visión is most eontractcdand ourestimate of the future most inadequate.