The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-10-24
POPULAR FEELING INTHE SoUTH.-Ho,

POPULAR FEELING INTHE SOUTH. How
large a portion of the southern people
really desire the success of the Union ar
mics it is impossible to ascertain. The
people within the rebel lines are not in
position to express their opinions. There
is no doubt, however, that great many of
the southern people, probablya majority,
are thoroughly tired OF the war, and so
well convinced that the rebellion cannot
succeed that they are ready to accept peace
in the Union as a choice of evils. If we
had only the testimony of rebel deserters
and contrabands as to the state of feeling
in the South, we might doubt even this.
But it is sustained by the evidence of ma
ny reliable witnesses. The Boston Journal
gives an account, written by a, gentlemen
who has resided many years at the South,
and has lately made journey through
Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, of the
popular feeling in those States, which has
every appearance Of being a true and I'M
adorned presentation of the facts. In Mis-
sissippi he rode some two hundred and
fifty miles, and talked freely with all class
es, and he did not find a single man who
believed that the independence of the
confederacy will ever be secured; the pre-
vailing sentiment was that the war had
lasted long enough, and brought sufficient
suffering and bloodshed upon the country,
and nearly every man was willing to re-
turn to the Union under the constitution.
In the rich cotton regions OF sOuther Ala
bama he found different feeling; the plan
tors had made up their minds to a long
war, had adapted their agriculture to it,and
would not listen to any talk about submis-
wheat-growing counties of that State, the
feeling is entirely different. The people
there never favored secession, have cursed
the demagogues continually for embroil-
ing the natiOnin war, and will welcome the
first opportunity to take the side Of the
Union openly. The readiness of the North
Alabamians to enlist in the Union armies
fully sustains this statement. In Georgia
there was the same difference of feeling
The planters in the southern counties still
obstinate in rebellion, and the small
farmers OF the mountain region against the
war. But everywhere, in all parts of these
States, the poor whites and those in mode
rate circumstances were against the war,
and many of them freely denounced the
war in order that the rich might grow rich
er and the poor poorer. Even in the rebel
army there was the same feeling. The
officers were thoroughly rebel, but not a
single man carrying a musket was found,
who. would not fankly admit that "if he
could have his way he would go home and
go to work; that he had been running
x,
losing ground all the time; that the South
couldn't hold out much longer, and for his
part he wished they would all quit and
| make peace, and let things be as they were
before Toombs and jeff. Davis and them
raised all this FUSS
notwithstanding this feeling of the south
ern masses and OF many OF the rank and
file in the army, there is no way in which
1t can get expression or make any demon
stration for peace, as yet. The whole South
is vast camp, and the people are under
military law. A free vote would probably
bring nearly every southern State into the
Union at this moment. But free vote
cannot be had so long as the rebel armies
are in the field. This state of the facts
shows the folly of all talk about armistice
and Cancellation at the present stage of the
war. 1t is still the first and Indispensable
thing to break down the military bower of
the rebellion. The Union men of the South
are gagged and cannot speak, manacled
and cannot strike. 1t is for their deliver
ance that our armies fight, and there are no
men so earnest for the prosecution of the
war as the loyal men of the border States,
who understand the real situation of the
southern people, and see that only success
| full lighting can secure Union and peace.
Looking to the future and to a restoration
OF the Union under the most desirable con-
dltions, the state of popular feeling in the
South is most satisfactory 1t is well that
the great planters continue to be obstinate
in rebellion, and it is well that the poor
whites have been made to suffer enough by
the secession leaders to open their eyes to
the fact that the oppressors of the black
man are also the oppressors of the white
man, and that their own welfare and the
welfare of their children requires that pow
er shall be taken from the hands of the
ariStocracy of the plantation and given to
the people. BY this means and through the
| poor whites of the South, the slave
! holders, is the work of social and political
transformation to he completed in that Sec
ti9n after the war is over, and the States
now in rebellion to be blessed with institu
tons republican in fact as well as in name.
Springfield Republican.
The venerable National Intelliqencer at
Washington, is ''riled up" at being called
pro-slavery, and says to the New York
Tribune: 1T is very easy to be generous
and phllanthropica at other people e expense,
but we can tell our cotemporary that the
publishers, OF the National Intellige1,cea
have emancipated more slaves at their own
cost and out Of their own pockets, long be.
fore the present agitation, than all the abo-
litionists put together between the Potomac
and tba ppnOlscot