The Norfolk post. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1865-1866, 1865-10-02

cry that 1t is SO. 1t may be common
sentiment entertained by the mass Of
the people, taken in their collective Gu
pacity, but individually there is no truth
in It, 1t may be an apparent sentiment
but is not real. 1t is altogether crea-
ture of the imagination. To prove this,
we will ask, if before this war any
Northern man who resided in the
South, ever met with the least inconve-
nience, or YVES at all annoyed by this al
legged hatred of Southerners for Yankees,
or does he encounter any of these diff
culties now. Was he ever excluded from
social religious, orpolitical communion
| with those born on the soil, because he
was from Connecticut or Pennsylvania
And even while the people around him
might be indulging in curses both loud
and deep against what they would
thoughtlessly call Northern fanaticism,
and abusing the Yankees, were not
Northern men treated in the most cor
dial and friendly manner, without the
least hatred or ill-ieeing being person.
ally displayed or thought of. They
might upon some points "agree to dis
agree" in regard to questions of public
policy, but i'll their private relations they
were on the most intimate and amicable
terms. And it was easy to discover that
even their most bitter words against the
Northern people did not often come
from the heart They would try, and
do 30 now, very hard to work themselves
into terrible passion, and to make
themselves believe that there wasan &C.
tual and well defined antagonism-a
fixed and irradicable hatred but they
generally failed in establishing it even
to their own satisfaction. They may
have thought, and may still think, they
hate the Northern people; but it is not the
fact. They may curse the Yankees from
morning till night collectively, and yet
when they meet their Yankee neighbor
they greet him with as friendly a smile
as If he had been born in the very heart
of the South, and really with greater
pleasure. Personal or individual hatred
there is none, and never has been any;
and the general fancied dislike is mere
Hypothetical abstraction and only exists
IN the Imagination. 1t is without any sort
of reality at present, and there never
was much body to it. Even during the
war the people were not hottest enemies.
They did not really hate. They only
tried to hate one another, but signally
failed in all their efforts. The common
blood, common origin, common charac-
and, above all, the fixed and |
homogeneous nature of the
people, forbid that individual
latreds should ever, to airy extent, exist
Imong them, or long continue shoul d
hey for time be called into activity. We
re not, as people, inclined to foster
feuds or enmities. We mix too
RELY, and are too much alike in lam
suage, nature, sentiments, religion, and
Ill the characteristics of sameness, to
'orm lasting ard imperishable feelings
IF dislike
A word about cavaliers and puritans.
We are all puritans. Everywhere in the
south the rules of morality are as strictly
and people are as straightlaced
q illiberal, as bgoted, and even as
moral, as within sound af Plymout h
tock-and are as exacting in re-
uiring Sabbath day observances,
tendance at church, and firm
aith in the Christian religion, as
anywhere in the North, if they be not
noreimportunate in their demands ., and
'iyen more to the persecution of the |
There Is not country
own in the South that does not contain
lore Of the real elements Of old English |
puritaniam than the city Of
'oston or Hartford and, then, too, the
Oasted cavaliers are not confined to any
action of America, either, any more
nan they were in England or other {
We imagine there were more
T the lower and middling orders of PEG. ,
lie from Europe who took an active part q
| laying the foundations of American t
emocracy, than of the Norman con- v
ueror's corrupt, blood-stained, and pro-
gate nobility. We suppose cavalier |
cans gentleman, and gentleman is !
wv supposed to be not only man of hon y
:, but an honorable man; and he is but I
fool who contends that this class of per- p
ms are confined to any particular To-
tlity, State, section or nation. This
ing the case, we find that the puri- v
n and the cavalier are so welded, COM II
FUNDED and moulded together in the q
lie nationality, that they. combine to 6
axe that peculiar conformation known u
the American people, which is sal
neris. II is so distinct and different Il
I'm all other peoples, being one and in y
visible in itself-a perfect unity of 6
re, interests, feelings, language, ap- b
arance and peculiarities-that there b
Yer can be anything like permanent
tagonism or lasting hatreds among Its ie
parts. So perfectly common oa
they in all things, that there is no w
rk by which you can distinguish one ba
N the other. We defy an expert to de
from his language, personal appear -,
10 mr. continents tho diffnrapno lo | ~