The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-08 00:00:00

PEELING TOWARD THE SOLDIERS AND THE PEOPLE OF

THE NORTH.

A more substantial evidence of returning loyalty would
be a favorable change of feeling with regard to the Govern-
ment's friends and agents and the people of the loyal
States generally. I mentioned above that all organised
attacks upon our military forces stationed in the South
have ceased; but there are still localities where it is un-
safe for a man wearing the Federal uniform or known
as an officer of the Government to be abroad outside
of the immediate reach of garrisons. The shooting of
single soldiers and Government couriers was not uufre-
quently reported while I was in the South, and even as
late as in the middle of September. Major Miller,
Assistant Adjutant-General of the Commission of the
Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama, while on an inspecting
tour in the southern counties of that State, found it diffi-
cult to prevent a collision between the menacing populace
and his escort. His wagonmaster was brutally murdered
while remaining but a short distance behind the com-
mand. The murders of agents of the Freedmen's Bureau
have been noticed in the public papers. These and simi-
lar occurrences, however, may be looked upon as isolated
cases, and ought to be charged, perhaps, only to the ac-
count of the lawless persons who committed them.

WHAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED.
While the generosity and tolefation shown by the
Government to the people lately in rebellion has not met
with a corresponding generosity shown by those people
to the Government's friends, it has brought forth some
results, which, if properly developed, Will become of value.
It has facilitated the re-establishment of the forms of civil
government and led many of those who had been active
in the rebellion to take part in the act of bringing back
the States to their constitutional relations; and if nothing
else were necessary than the mere putting in operation of
the machinery of Government in point of form, and not
also the acceptance of the results of the war and their
development in point of spirit, these results, although as
yet incomplete, might be called a satisfactory advance in
the right direction. There is at present no danger of
another insurrection against the authority of the United
States on a large scale, and the people are willing to re-
construct their Sate governments and to send their senators
and representatives to Congress.

GENERAL IDEAS AND SCHEMES OP WHITES CONCERNING

THE FREEDMEN.

Some of the planters with whom had occasion to con-
verse expressed the determination to adopt the course
which best accords with the spirit of free labor ; to make
the negro work by offering him fair inducements, to stimu-
late his ambition, and to extend to him those means of
intellectual and moral improvement, which are best cal-
culated to make him an intelligent, reliable, and efficient
free laborer, and a good and useful citizen. Those who
expressed such ideas were almost invariably professed
Union men, and far above the average in point of mental
ability and culture. 1 found a very few instances of original
Secessionists also manifesting a willingness to give the
free labor experiment a fair trial. I can represent the sen-
timents of this small class in no better way than by quot-.
ing the language used by an Alabama Judge in conversa-
tion with me :—" I am one of the most thoroughly
whipped men in the South," said he ; "I am a genuine
old Secessionist, and I believe now, as I always did, we
had the constitutional right to secede. But the war has
settled that matter, and it is all over now. As to this
thing of free negro labor I cannot believe in it. But I
will give it a fair trial. I have a plantation, and am going
to make contracts with my hands, and then I want a real
Yankee to run the machine for me—not one of your New
Yorkers or Pennsylvanians, but the genuine article from
Massachusetts or Vermont, one whg can not only farm,
but sing Psalms, and pray, and teach a s chool—a real
Abolitionist, who believes in the thing, just as I don't
believe in it. If he does not succeed, I shall consider it
proof conclusive that you are wrong and lam right." I