the Examiner with the latter. The Enquirer went immediately into the fight, but the Examiner, although declaring promptly after the convention, as we have seen, its purpose, to support Mr. Wise, yet from certain local reasons did not choose to open its battery until about the first of February. After this time no journal could have rendered more effective service to any party. We have drawn freely from that able and independent journal in this compilation, and in deing so we thought we could do nothing to answer our purpose better. On the eve of the election the following editorial, which we designate as the Signal Gun, appeared in the Examiner :

TO THE INVINCIBLE DEMOCRACY OF VIRGINIA.

This is the last time our words can reach the great body of our readers before the election. We are glad that these last words are words of encouragement, confidence and assurance. We use no electioneering artifice-we express no hesitating opinion, when we tell the Democracy of Virginia, that, if they do their duty, the victory is theirs. On no former occasion in the history of their battles and victories have the party been so universally aroused and fiercely indignant as now. Hesitating somewhat in the early part of the canvass-doubtful for a moment as to the true line of duty-they have been thoroughly aroused during the latter months of the contest, and-outraged, disgusted and incensed at the intrusion of so foul a thing as Know Nothingism in a Southern community, and in virtuous Virginia-they have risen up as one man to break its head and cast its loathsome carcass from the presence of decency and virtue.

The frogs and locusts and vermin which infested Egypt, did not produce a more profound antipathy or universal loathing and retching among her people, than our honest Democracy of Virginia feel towards the polluting filth and nauseating slime which is denoted by the vulgarism-Sam. And they mean to deal with the intrusion in a summary way. They have a herculean task before them more formidable than the cleansing of the Augean stables; but, considering that great emergencies require great exertions, every man is resolved to make thorough work of his task, and to do it with an energy and completeness which will leave nothing to be done over again hereafter. The spirit of the Democracy everywhere-in every grand division and section, as well as in every county and precinct in the State,-is the same. One instinctive resolve

and one common purpose actuates the whole mass. It is not any artificial organization, the result of political machinery and thorough party drill, that has produced this intense unity of sentiment and of resolve; but it is the intuitive. Îoathing of what is mean, low, and vile, which actuates the heart of Virginia, and bands her democracy together in serried phalanx. The old party lines fade and vanish in this contest. The impure ingredients that before had an accidental place in the Democratic mass fall off under the attraction of the foreign substance that is brought in contact, leaving the pure lump of genuine Democracy cleansed and refined. The old opposing party also falls to pieces, giving up its dross and impurity to the newly imported foreignism, and leaving the pure Virginianism to seek its natural affinity in the mother element of unadulterated Virginia Democracy.

It is

No, this is no contest about men that our Democracy are waging now. not that we want to elect this man or to beat that man. It is not that our attachments to these candidates as men, or hostilities to those candidates as men, lead us to vote so and so. But the sentiment of the Virginia Democracy is: This is a foul, demoralizing, debasing, filthy thing, that has got into Virginia pastures from the Northern pig-sty, and is turning our land of honesty, truthfulness, good manners, and manly frankness, into a very Yankee's slough of

falsehood, slander, deceit, cunning, detraction, meanness and vileness. For the love we bear our Commonwealth, and for the hatred she inspires in her sons for all that is mean, grovelling and despicable, we must beat down this foul beast and smite it unto death.

Who so craven and false of heart as to believe we shall fail in the righteous, noble work? Who can divest hims If so far of the generous confidence that a brave man feels in the triumph of the right, as to entertain one thought of failure? The man deserves to be pilloried who allows the belief to possess him, that SAM, the bastard of a Five Points jail-bird, is going to triumph in Virginia. He is no Democrat-no Virginian-no man, that can harbor the thought. It cannot be, and will not be. Virginia Democracy will carry Virginia as sure as the rising and setting of the sun. Angered, aroused, indignant and ferocious beyond all former precedent, our glorious, invincible Democracy long for the onset and thirst for the battle. As the hind pants for the water brooks, so they pant for the day of vengeance.

.

And woe, woe unto those who have provoked their holy wrath. Woe unto the men who have brought deceit, cunning, duplicity, midnight and dark lantern plottings into Virginia. The day of retribution is at hand. The vengeance of the Lord is upon the heels of the false Egyptians, Phillistines, Moabites, Edomites, Ishmaelites. The Lord has brought sharp swords upon them, to make them food for the fowls of heaven and the beasts of the field. See how the clouds roll and mutter and the fire flashes before them. The anger of the righteous cometh fast upon them with the noise and fury of the storm, which shall surely overtake them.

Well is it for that man of Virginia, this day, who shall barter his house for an helmet, and sell his garment for a sword, and cast in his lot with the children of Democracy. But woe, woe, unto him who, for carnal ends and self seeking, has withheld himself from the great work, and joined his hand with the enemyfor the curse shall abide upon him-even the bitter curse of MEROZ-forever and ever more.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE CANVASS. MR. WISE'S LETTER.

Mr. Wise concluded the campaign at Leesburg, the county seat of Loudon, in one of his masterly efforts. He had been regularly in the field from the first of January to the seventh of May. In that time he had traveled more than three thousand miles, had been upon the stump fifty times, and had consumed two hundred hours in public speaking. When he concluded, he was much enfeebled and exhausted from the excessive labors he had undergone. In all probability, nothing saved his life but his indomitable and patriotic spirit. He went from Leesburg to Washington city, and there awaited the decision of the people of Virginia. He wrote the following letter on his arrival in that city. In this letter can be seen the true and fervid patriotism beaming and flashing in every sentence.

TO THE, PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA.

Fellow Citizens :-I have now finished the canvass of the State. On the 7th inst., at Leesburg, I met my last appointment. Incessant and excessive labors, for 127 days, have so impaired my health and strength, that I must desist from

further effort and seek rest. I retire from the "stump" the less reluctantly' because I may now justly claim that I have faithfully tried to do my part, and I can confidently leave the rest to the unsubdued and unterrified Democracy and its loyal hosts.

Never were the sound, conservative, conscientious, and stake-holding Republicans in Virginia, better organized and more aroused than they are at the present time. It has been deserted by a few who left their party for its good; but, in turn, the very flower of the old opposition of Whiggery, respectable in times past for its profession of conservatism and its love of law and order have chosen to elect Democracy with all the ills they complain of it, rather than to fly to those they "know not of."

The personnel of the party was never more purified, and the numerical majority was never larger than it promises to be at the coming election. As in 1801, the Democracy stood "like a wall," and rolled back the tide of federalism, so now it stands and will roll back the tide of fanaticism! It will prove itself to be the visible invincible! It is roused, and will rally to the polls 10,000 voters more than ever gave the viva voce before! And the viva voce will rend the veil from the "invisible," and defend the freedom and independence of the elective franchise and the Constitution and the laws, against the conspiracy of

the dark lantern.

It will forbid any power in Virginia to interpose between our conscience and our God.

It will save the Protestant Churches from the pollution of party politics, and conserve its powers of truth for the pulling down of strongholds, free from the taint and violence of persecution. It will trust in God, and defend the Christian faith from Intolerance, and allow poor humanity to indulge in the virtues of charity and peace on earth, and good will to all men.

It will only oppose any "legislative enactment" to interfere with the rights of the members of any Church as citizens; but it will deny the power of the Legislature to annul the new Constitution, which has made the act of religious freedom irrepealable. That act is now organic law. And the Democratic conservatism will allow no party nor power to set up a higher law, and say that a man shall be burthened, when the Constitution says he shall not be burthened, for reason of his religious opinion, by being excluded from eligibility to office, or by removal from office because of his religion or the place of his birth.

It will prevent the repudiation of the right of Naturalization, for which the nation poured out its blood and treasure, for three years in the second war of Independence with Great Britain.

It will defend the State right to regulate citizenship.

It will not deny to the oppressed a home, nor prevent the population "of these States" still requiring hundreds of millions of immigrants, who bring with them hundreds of millions of money.

It will allow the poor, as well as the rich, to come and "drink of the waters" of liberty freely. And it will remember that all are not criminals whom European despots call such, and send away from troubling their dominion. It will take by the hands other criminals besides John Mitchell, and feel for others in the prison-houses and dungeons of the Old World besides him who once was tenant of Olmutz!

It will jealously guard against the Foreign influence which is insidiously sent from Exeter Hall in Old England to Williams' Hall in New England, to invade America in the name of an "American" party; and it will watch the oppressor, not the oppressed, abroad, as did "Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Jack

son!"

It will defend the freedom and independence of the elective franchise against the conspiracy which would bind voters by test oaths to reject men of a particular religious faith, marked for proscription; and which would not leave suf

frage as free to elect as to reject those whom the constitution and the laws have made eligible to office.

It will especially guard the office of Governor from the avowed intent to wield the appointing power so as not to obey the limitations of qualification for office, fixed by the constitution, but to obey rules of appointment established by an irresponsible and unauthorized Secret Oligarchy, formed to set up the Higher Law of its own proscription for its own exclusive and selfish ends.

It will see that the oath itself of the Governor's office is not prevented by sectarian bigotry to set up a religious test as a qualification for office.

It will defend the General Government from the consolidation which would establish itself on what is called the independence of Congress.

It will defend public policy from the faith of the American system, Harbors, Rivers, and Pacific Railroads, and Protective Tariffs, and Internal Improvements by the General Government, now again advanced by a Winchester Council of the American party.

It will defend the State against agrarianism, freesoilism and abolitionism, now threatening to invade the South from Northern and non-slaveholding Councils of Know Nothingism. It will defend society against the demoralization of a cabal sworn to practice dissimulation and perfidy between man and man. it will defend religion against the demons of anti-Christ!

And

With perfect and abiding confidence in the power of Truth and Democracyof a purified, exalted and triumphant majority for these impregnable positions, I go home to Accomac, and await the polls of the people. I cannot do so without thanking thousands, of the sections of the State through which I have passed, for their uniform hospitality, kindness and respect, and without saying that the chief gratification with which I part from a daily intercourse with the masses of the people is that I have endeavored to sow the seeds of truth only in the popular mind, and I trust that they will be fruitful of blessings to individuals, to the State and to the country.

I am, very truly and respectfully,

Your fellow-citizen,

HENRY A. WISE.

WASHINGTON CITY, May 10th, 1855.

OFFICIAL VOTE OF VIRGINIA.

Below we give the official vote of the election in Virginia on the 24th of May 1855, for Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General. The returns we derive from the office of the Secretary of State; therefore, they may be relied on as nearly correct. The vote of the State for Governor, is 83,424 for Mr. Wise; 73,244 for Mr. Flournoy-total, 156,668-majority for Mr. Wise, 10,180. This result vindicates the correctness of our estimate, calculated from the unofficial returns. Our table always exhibited Mr. Wise's majority a little over 10,000, while estimates from other sources made the majority fall considerably below that amount. The average Democratic majority in the Statc, exhibited by this election, is 11,225-Mr. Bocock having received the highest, and Mr. Patton the lowest vote:-Enquirer.