Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1865-09-28


passionate, and We trust the South will SO
act as to aid their friends, not their ene-
mics" 81
From the New York Times
The North and South The Speech Of
Hon. Thad. Stevens.
There are great many Southerners in
this city trying to make arrangements for a
resumption Of business AS general thing,
their conduct is manly, frank and sensible,
calculated to win the confidence and respect
of every generous and just community
Nine in every ten of them have been utter
ly ruined by the rebellion, Most of them
cast their fortunes into the struggle for a
cause which they believed to be right, but
which they see. and acknowledge to have
been fatally and finally defeated. They
have lost position, influence, property, chill
dren, frieuds-everything which makes life
desirable. Under such circumstances, weak
men sink down into abject despair, or drag
out the rest of their lives in the safe OBJ.
security of foreign lands. The defeated
Southerners meet their calamity in more
manly style. They show in their defeat, as
they did in their struggle, le,-courage, des-
perate tenacity of. purpose, and that high.
spirited readiness to meet all the respousi.
bilities of their conduct, which never fails
to command the respect of the world.
1t may not seem wholly in keeping with
this courageous temper, that quite mum.
ber of these persons, on reading the speech
of Hon. Thad.- Stevens, have abandoned
their business projects and gone home dis.
couraged. They say they cannot face the
desolation which his plans propose for the
South They cannot put their farms again
in order, clear them of their ipcumbrances,
rebuild their ruined dwellings, plant fresh
crops and get new start in life for their
children and themselves, with the prospect,
at any moment, of seeing the whole swept
away by ruthless confscation. They cannot
work with heart or hope while such sword
is hanging over their heads.
We cannot blame them for this feeling,
but the fear out which it grows seems to us
quite unwarranted There is nothing either
in the past conductor the present temper
of the North to justify the belief that any
such policy as that recommended by MIR.
Stevens will be adopted True,. Mr.. S. is
a prominent and influential public man
His ripe age, his long experience in public
life, and his position as official leader in
the, House of Representatives combine to
give weight and importance to his views of
public affairs. But as p;:blic man he be-
longs rather to the past than the future
He is universally known to be extreme in
all his views, sometimes to the verge of &C.
ceptricity; and while Congress and the
country always listen With attention and re,
spect to his expression of them, they are
never allowed to shape, to any considerable
extent, the practical conduct of public af-
fairs. Mr.. Stevens insisted throughout the
last Congress that the Southern States and
people shosld be treated as alien enemies );
but Congress never ooncurTed in his opinion
In the Baltimore Convention he urged the
exclusion of delegates from every Southern
State that had been in rebellion-but they
were admitted by vote of two to one. So
We venture to predict that if Mr.. Stevens
should introduce into Congress his last grand
scheme for a sweeping con6scation Of South
eru property, he will not get t'oe"ty Jtue
votes in its favor.
President Jobnson's speech to the South
ern delegation the other day, ought to re-
assure Southern men upon this point. His
authority is certainly quite as high as that
of Mr.. Stevens, aud his influence upon the
course of Legislation will be ten.fold greater.
He assures the South, in the most explicit
and emphatic terms, that they will not be
perseouted nor treated barshly-that their
welfare will be consulted-tbat their past
sufferings have atoned for their past offences
that we regard them as members OF the
same great family, alieuated and betrayed
into fearful crimes for a time, but still
bound to us by ties of affection and to be
trusted and cherished upon their. return to,
the authority they have tried to overthrow.
This is the language of generous and
magnanimous statesmsnship, and it finds an
echo in the national heart The people of
the North are not revengeful. They have
never hated the South. Even in the midst
of the war they have cherished kindly SEN
timents toward the people they were COM
PEELED to fight; and now that the wT is
over, they have no thought or wish to crush
fallen foe. For they know perfectly we'll
that the people of the South must come to
be their friends, that as the nation is one,
so have all its people common welfare
only to be secured by common sentiments
Of respect and of mutual regard. Nobody
anywhere, who has any just conception of
the duties and necessities of the immediate
future, dreams of stripping the already i'm
poverished people of the. South, as means
of promoting and building up the prosperi-
ty of the nation. The great mass Of the
Northern people, without regard to party,
will sustain, heartily and vigorously, the
policy of the President. They went into
the war reluctantly, but they have fought it
zout victoriously !; and they accept the extir-
patton of slavery, the perpetua.icn of the
Union, the increased. consideration and re-
spect which we enjoy abroad, and the self
reliance and courage which it has developed
at home, as an equivalent for the srfferings,
burdens and sacrifices it has involved. And