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1099

more than I can tell if the iron-clad oath is to be insisted on; - for I do not know of one in the Counties of Goochland and Fluvanna who can take that oath.  The same is true of the other offices to be filled in the Counties, to this extent at least, that men who are at all qualified to discharge the duties of the various positions cannot be found it the iron-clad oath is insisted on as an essential prerequisite.  To test this matter it is only necessary to ask the colored voters, as I have done at a meeting of several of them, to make up a ticket for the County of men who can do the business required of these officers.  They cant begin to do it; and the attempt, alone, convinces them, as no talk or argument will do, of the mistake the Convention has made.  One of two things must follow as matters stand - Either men utterly incompetent must be selected to fill the offices, or they must go unfilled; and in either case it amounts to a practical stopping of the wheels of County business.

This state of things must work disastrously to all parties, and especially so to the freedmen, who would have no courts to protect them, and who cannot protect