Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1863-01-23
The South on New Englanders.

ment of fighting capacity in the Yam
KEGS in the following entertaining para
graphs, in which there is enough of truth
to make them racy =
From the settlement of America the
character of the northern people had ex.
hibited no special inclination nor apti-
tudes for belligerent movements. Not
that it was deficient in courage, nor at
any rate upon the sea, in warlike enter
prise. There have been few equals in
any navy to the Traxtons and Humans
of the revolution descendants of both of
whom are row found battling on the side
of the confederacy) or the Perrys, Hulls,
Bainbridges, McDonoughs, of the late
war. But those cases are not illustrative
OF the general genius and temper of the
nation; and, moreover, not few of them
were of Carolina descent. The outand-
out Puritan, though not deficient in pluck,
prefers the peaceful picking of his neigh
boris pocket, in the pursuit of trade and
commerce, to the perilous plunder Of the
battle field. 1t was only in the bloodless
conflicts Of bargain and sale that the de-
scendants Of the cavaliers had ever been
called on to face the descendants of the
roundheads in America. 1t is needless
to say that in those conflicts we uniform
/ ~ got The worst Of it. And who did not ?
They had cheated the Dutch out of their
eyes, and swindled the Indians off the
face of the earth. The offspring Of the
cavaliers fell an easy prey 10 the chill
dren of the Puritans. From the time
when long lines OF peddler wagons inva-
ded the south TO the time when long lines
of railroads carried their better dressed
but equally nasal and vulgar drummers
TO every dwelling, they victimized the
southern community in every shape and
form. All this was natural, and had be-
come so common tbatto be commercially
skinned by the Yankees was a luxury
which we scarcely knew how to dispense
with. But that all these peaceful traders
should some day send an army here to
cut the throats OF their old customers,
seemed piece of insanity which no one
not himself insane could attribute 10 Yam
kee Doodle.
Moreover, there was another reason
why, apparently, such a thing could new
er happen, The Yankee race had be-
come the most pous and humane, as well
as the most shrewd and commercial of
mankind. They had improved upon the
Christian religion in several important
particulars, and as for Moses, he was an
ignorant outside barbarian, in comparison
with most of the Yankee Doodle theolo-
gians. War and slavery, neither of which
are prohibited 10 the Bible, bad been as
certained to be high crimes by the Puri-
tan moralists. The capital punishment
Of the vilest murderer made them shud-
der with horror. They invented tee-to-
tai societies, and colossal Bible, tract,
Christian, and hundred other benevo-
lent and religious associations, which eel
ebrated their anniversaries every May 10
New York, letting loose such multitude
of cadaverous, dyspeptic, and unearthly
saints upon the country that scarcely a
bird presumed TO sing or flower to bloom
in their presence. So powerful and sanc-
tilted had the religious organizations of
the north become, that they confidently
expected soon to reform the whole world,
and many excellent people in the south
began to believe that the millennium was
at hand
But it was not the millennium that
was at hand, as we now perceive. 1t
was something else very different from
the millennium. Yet who could have i'm
agined that beneath such a sanity sur
face should be boiling all the fires of hell
soon to be let loose upon US and all we
hold dear? Who could have believed
that the commercial columns which bad
invaded us in peace would be turned into
military columns, and that the legions of
Yankee saints and angels would so soon
become murderers and demons Much
of this astonishment arises from the fact
that we have only known the Puritan in
peace, and never met him in war till now.
Whoever will turn TO the annals of that
race in England will find that, in almost
every particular, SO far as the develop
ment of human character is concerned,
history is only repeating itself in this
country. The brutal, cruel, greedy, Ii
centious, hypocrilical, and sacrilegious
Roundhesds are alive again in their de-
scendants. We have no peace to expect
with the north as long as the Puritan ell
ement is permitted to control the politics
of their society"