Civilian & telegraph. [volume] (Cumberland, Md.) 1859-1875, 1865-07-20
A Virginian to President Johnson
Views of one of the "Jonciliated."

There is a little six by nine paper published
10 Lynehburg called the Wrginian. and it
gives the most of its space to dismal indi-
vidual signing A. Garland, who is laboring
~ prove to bis fellow -citizens that slavery is
yet in existence throughout the land, on the
ground that its extinction was not Effected ~ a
Constitutional ,eay. This talk is in the form
Vt letters to President johnson, and the wri-
Ter drivils in this fashion:
Did the disruption Of the Union. so fur as
She Seeding States are concerned, and the
var which eusued. confer any new powers
upon the Federal Government, or .bsolvc it
from the obligations which the Constitution
Imposed? Ii not. as must be your answer,
DC pleased, sir, to inform, not me, but the
whole American people, when and where your
immediate predecessor found authority to sbol-
sh Slavery in the slave States by his mere
proclamation, n proclamation which you are
now having executed.
As before remarked, there is no power in
she Federal Government, or any of its depart
nents, to establish, control, or abolish slavery
in the States where it exists, or any where
else. This has been the doctrine of Congress
repeatedly determined, the doctrine Of the
Supreme Court of most Of the States, aud
nearly all the eminent md learned statesmen
Of the Union, AMI, if | mistake not, it WIS
your doctrine up to the close of the Cincinnati
Democratic Convention. If go, have you
changed? If you have not, why is it that
you execute proclamation so palpably viola
tive of that Constitution you have so recently
sworn to support, and which so directly in
vades and usurps the domestic rights OF SOW
srcign States?
There are three columns Of this stuff, eve
~ line of it calculated to stir up strife, every
word of it venomous and maliciously libel rus
Of the Government of the United States and
the people of what he calls Gathering States y
Northern periodicals" are still regarded
as "incendiary documents" only to be burn
3D. as of DID, and their readers punished with
the lash. The Tirginian says:
We have been presented by J. 7 Bell & Co.
with the July numbers of two Northern mag
asines We acknowledge the courtesy of the
nct but cannot recommend these publications
20 Southern patronage. They neither possess
the literary nor the moral merit that would
Justify us in doing So We trust the day is past
when the eHlaDatlonS OF NOrtncTH llDa'lCiSin
snd ether isms will find willing supporters in
the South. Let us foster and bri 4 up South
ern literature, to the exclusion # that which
has vllifed and prosecuted u.s."
The following as t. the conduct Of the al;
dies" is refreshing, when it Is considered many
of them are supported by the kindness Of the
officers of the Government they insult.
We have heard complaints from Federal
officers here, of contumely and scorn evinced
for them on the streets by some at the gcntler
sex in this city Now. we believe that for
the most part the conduct of our ladies has
been diguifed, exemplary and all that could
be expected. 1t was not supposed that they
could welcome to the hospitality of their
homes, aud receive into intimate social rela-
lions those who were but lately regarded as
their unrelenting enemies and the authors of
she crushing bereavcments that so many have
suffered.