The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1865-12-23
SATURDAY MORNING.. DEC. %.
IT is the studious aim of class o

papers IN Iue oOuLn suCu as Inc Rich
mond Enquirer, Examiner. and Times,
to create the impression that a despot-
ism exists in this country; that liberty
exists only in name; that the South is
to the North what Ireland is to England
or Hungary to Austria. They labor to
insinuate and suggest in every pos
sible way that the condition of things
now existing forbids restoration Of
the Union-that there can be no real
restoration of the Union-that thecOm-
pRnionship must be an unwilling one.
The editors seem bent on inspiring 4
hope that some day the issue of the wal
in whole or in part will change in favor
OF the South-that. in the language oil
Wendell Phillips, the South after all
will emerge victorious from the contest.
They claim that the North is now afraid
to trust the South In Congress, and
they ask whether we expect to change
the South by keeping her out? Whether
1t is not more likely that we will only
exacerbate her present temper by so
doing. The longer we keep her out the
more disaffected she will become, is the
init her now she has no pledgesto make
as TO what she will attempt to do. The
papers alluded to call upon the South
ern representatives one and all to re-
tire from Washington and fall back on
their dignity and their constituents.
Let the North rule us to their fill, is the
language employed. Let them make
all the laws and let us simply show
them by our stubborn, unyielding and
inplacable resentments how far they
are from having restored that Union for
which they have made such tremen-
dous sacrifices. ..r
The foregoing is an outline of the
programme upon which tic leading
rebel papers in the South are now pro-
ceeding. They represent in this pro-
grHmme large class Of influential per-
sons who feel that Mt any price what
ever the prestige of the South prior to
and during the war, must be maintain
ed. To give up their rebellious status
to acquiesce cordially and in good
faith in the new order of things-is to
invite, in their judgments, odium
upon their antecedents and faint upon
their future. This the leading public
men at the South, especially in Virginia,
fool that they cannot afford. Hence the
key note so lately sounded in the lead
ing and most able papers finds very
ready and decided response from the
politicians. There is hope among
them that either through foreign war
or through the intestine feuds of the
Republican party, the South will gain
the grand points for which she strUg-
gled In the war. President johnson is
looked to, though not without many
misgivings, as friend. The Emperor
Napoleon is preferred over the Presi-
dent as a more radical and congenial
ally. The democracy of the North are
as ever, the last and forlorn hope. The
rebel leaders can never give over their
feeling that the democracy are always
the natural allies of slavery and rebel
lion. They can count upon the willing
ness and subserviency of the demoera-
Cy In success or defeat.
Taking this programme as our guide
It's easy enough to understand the in
ilammatory articles with which the
Southern press have begun to TEEN.
Everywhere they are raising the same
voice. The attempt is being mnde to
unite the South in favor OF this policy
by holding up to scorn every prominent
man who shows signs of "giving in, 4"
as these papers call it, to the Yankee
order of things. In North Carolina the
military authorities have been COM
PEELED to commence n raid upon the
disloyal sheets. We hive some speci-
mems OF the rebel utterances down there
before us. We notice in the Charlotte
7iBIeS an editorial running thus:
''rhe South is now under IA moro
grinding despOtism than has heretofore
found II place on the face of the earth.
Other nations, while suffering
under the iron heel of luwlGss tyranny,
can console themselves with the reficc-
ton that their condition is no worse
than TINT of their predecessors. The
Russian serf, as he eats his bread of
dependence, knows that such was the
inheritance left him by his father. Not
so with the proud, high-souled South
ron. He once roamed his fields II free
man, and sat under his own vine and
fig tree, and none dared make him
afraid He was the equal, IL not the
superior OF the mercenary race that now
dominates over him"
The piper in which this article APP
pears is edited by its old conductors
who did SO much to convince the peo-
pie OF, North Carolina before the war
that they We're living under n desput-
ism. The editors found no freedom in
the old as they find none in the new
Union. What is TO be done with such
men? What is to he done with those
for whom they cater2 Are we to take
them into the Government and tell
them to mould its policy! Are we, in
other words, TO give up to such men,
simply because they refuse to be re-
concilcd TO tho Union? Since one ele-
ment or the other is TO rule in this land,
ought 1t TO be those who were snccess-
full or those who wero defeated in the
wary To be compelled to hold the
South by armed occupation is certainly
not an agreeable prospect to the
mind of any American. We trust
that the loyal Stares will not be
compelled to thus maintain the
Union. There is no reason why thew
should be amer the keen edge of the
recent strife wears away. The great
canse of all our difficulties is wiped
out, and why should tho two sections,
both now free. be aliens? Community
OF language, laws, religion, and the
great arts OF commerce and trade, will
unite us sooner or later, as we devoutly
believe. But at all events the Union
will be maintained. There are worse
things to contemplate thnn holding the