The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-02-13
Rebels "WO'nt be RecOnstructed.''
From the Richmond Dispatch, Jan. &c.

From the Richmond Dispatch, Jan &c
DEMONSTRATIONS. .'
Nothing falls more strangely on South
ern ears than the talk of reconstruction
we hear so much of in the resolutions and
speeches of Northern conservatives. How
to undeceive men who indulge such illu
siOns we know not. They must put them
selves in our places, undergo all that we
have undergone and feel all that we feel in
order to understand that of all impossible
things in this world the reconstruction OF
the old Union is the most impossible. Re-
construction! Can they reconstruct the
family circles which they have broken
can they reconstruct the fortunes which
they have scattered-can they reconstruct
the bodies of our dead kindred which by
tens of thousands they have destroyed?
When they can do this they can recon-
struct the old Union. When they can do
this-when they can breathe the breath
of life into the pallid faces of our sons and
brothers and restore them one more, liv-
ing and happy, to our desolate firesides,
they may dream of bringing back that
Union whose only principle of cohesion
was the mutual love and confidence of its
people.
We can comprehend the logic of the bru-
tai republicans when they scott at the idea
of rebuilding the old Union upon the prin-
ciples of the American constitution and
hold out before us only subjugation or ex-
termination. With all their demonac fe-
rocity, they have at least the sense to I'M
derstand that they have sinned past for
giveness, and that they have nothing to
expect of a people whom they have so
outraged but the most inextinguishable
hate. They know and feel in their inmost
souls that they and we can only be united
again as master and slave, and slaves they
mean to make us, if brute and bloody force
can ever accomplish that object. We de-
spise their threats; but acknowledge
that there is but one road to the reun-
ion Of America under one government,
and that is over the dead bodies of every
man, woman and child in the Southern
Confederacy. They will never be our
masters, and we would not have them for
our slaves. Death must come in one form
or another to US all, and in none could it
come more glorious and honorable than in
defence of the inalienable rights of man.
Better death in any form than submission
to the brutal despotism which for two long
years has bathed its hand il the hearts
blood of our best and bravest, and which
give US no alternative but to kiss the steel
that is red with our kindred blood or perish.
We warn the democrats and cOnserva-
tives of the North to dismiss from their
minds at once the miserable delusiOn that
the South can ever consent to enter again,
upon any terms, the old Union. If the
North will allow us to write the cOnstitu-
ton ourselves, and give us every guaran-
tee we would ask, we wood sooner be I'M
der the government of England or France
than under a Union with men who have
shown that they cannot keep good faith,
and arc the most barbarous and inhuman,
as well as treacherous, of mankind. Sup
pose two men engaged in partnership
fall out, and one Of them, after vio-
lating every article Of the agreement of
partnership, destroys the property of the
other, burns his house over his head, butch
ers his wife and children, and then asks
the other to renew their old partnership
and 90 on in business again as if nothing
had happened. This is a faint image of
what the Northern reconstructiOnists ask
of the South If we could agree to lit our
folly would be only equalled by their viii
lainy. Loyalty to them is treason to our
dead, to ourselves and to humanity.
If the recOnstructiOnists want peace they
can easily have it upon the terms on which
they could have always had it-letting us
alone. We ask neither more nor less. We
are making no war upon them. We are
not invading their territory, nor giving
their homes to the flames, their popula-
tons to prison and the sword, and their
women to fate worse than death. Let
us alone! That is all we ask. Let us
alone, and peace will return once more to
bless distracted land. But do not expect
us to degrade ourselves and cast dishonor
upon the graves of our kindred by ever re-
turning to the embrace of those whose
hands are dripping with the tears and
blood of our people.