Black Walnut Va 22nd April 1868 My Dear Cousin Irv., On my arrival at home a few days since from Richmond where I had been vainly trying to help make a Constitution under which we could live, at least for a time, I found your letter of the 4th of March. I now enclose a draft on Lancaster +6§ of Richmond Bank, its for the sum you desire say two hundred dollars which I hope will reach you in due course of mail. I think you act wisely in returning to Mo. and spending the short remainder of your life with your sister, where you may be useful to some extent to them and have their sympathy and care in your old age. This leaves us all in usual bodily health, but we are all very much broken in spirit. Our political condition is very pitiable and our pecuniary condition is no better. Three fourths of our people are ******** and our future prospects for a considerable time is very gloomy. The Col! people who have been enfranchised and who constitute nearly half of our population and with a small party of adventurers from the North and a few cow native whites now control the State. Show an unmistakable purpose to hold permanently all the offices in the state and to admin- ister the government in the interests of their party & especially of the Negro and to the oppression of the whites. The Negros are bent upon social equality in our schools & colleges & every where and nearly all whites are disfranchised from office. It is and must be a contest between the two races for supremacy. The one or the other must bear rule. The Superior race cannot consent to bear all the burdens of government and allow the inferior race who contribute next to nothing for the support of government - who have nothing at stake & no capacity to govern, to rule them. All this if not in some way altered must lead to a bloody conflict and to the destruction of the one or the other race. How a wise and rational government could have contrived - and can still continue such a policy is to me the greatest wonder and astonish- ment of my life. I have been through all the trials until now intensely National in my feelings. At great peril to my reputation amongst my own people & kindred in the hours of their ****** and fully I plead for the Union and upheld its authority. Is it in human nature to continue to live and cherish a Government so cruel? - More cruel than if they had eliminated twenty thousand of our bravest & best men and left their survivors free. But enough of this. The seasons here have been rather unfavorable. The Winter was quite cold and very wet. But little work has been done toward planting a crop. Not much Corn yet planted though ordinarily we have been want to finish by this time. I hope that you will continue to write as often as convenient. I am very truly & affectionately yours Wm L. Owen ___________________________________________________________________ From: Lee Shepard To: Subject: Owen letters Date: Thursday, January 13, 2000 4:41 PM Mr. Wayne E. Johnson: Your email of 12 January has been forwarded to me by the Virginia Historical Society's webmaster, Julie Beamer. Thank you for contacting us about copies of the letters of William L. Owen in your possession, in which we would be very interested. Owen was born about 1809 and died in 1881. Most of his life was spent on his plantation, Elwood Farm, near Black Walnut, a village in Halifax County, Virginia, near the North Carolina border. Black Walnut was later renamed Cluster Springs because of the attempt to turn the local healing springs into a health resort during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Owen was an exceptionally wealthy merchant-farmer and owned a large number of slaves before the Civil War. After the war he did serve in the House of Delegates, 1865-1867, and in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1867-1868, where he voted regularly with the Conservatives. His letters written during this period would no doubt be most interesting and important from a historical perspective. We would be delighted to receive copies for the collection. If possible, please send them to my attention at the address below, and thank you again for this kind offer. Regards, Lee Shepard -- E. Lee Shepard Assistant Director for Manuscripts and Archives Virginia Historical Society P.O. Box 7311 Richmond, VA 23221-0311 (804) 342-9670 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Wayne E. Johnson (© 2003 Wayne E. 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