Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1866-09-06
THE SOUTH.


Granger the Condition of Southern
/ Sentiment.
TO HIS Ecce7ze,cy And1eov johnson, President
Of The United States:
SIR: In obedience to instructions, dated
May 9, 1866, directing me, while carrying
out specific mission, GO to examine careful
ly into the disposition of the people of the
Southern States through which [ might
pass, towardIthe government of the United
States, " have the honor to report
That in all the States l visited found no
sign or symptom of organized disloyalty to
| the general government. I found the peo-
pie taking our currency, and glad to get it !;
anxious for Northern capital and Northern
| labor to Sdeyelop the resources of their
wasted country, and well disposed toward
every Northern man who came among them
with Ghat object III view.
! Ia some localities l heard Iumors of Sc
| cret organi cations, pointing to renewal of
the rebellion. On Investigating these secret
societies ] could discover in them nothing
more than charitable institutions, having
fer their principal object the relief of the
widows and orphans Of confederate soldiers
! who had fallen III the wal.
| During the whole of my travels found
| it to be as safe and as convenient to minge
with the people of the South, freely discuss
ing any and every topic that come up, as
| il any otLer section OF the United States.
| was often among them unknown, and the
! tenor Of their acts and CONVEX satiOn was
! then the same as when my name and Off
| c;a, position were thoroughly understood.
/ The people ofthe South may be divided
into two classes There is the industrious
class, laboring earnestly to build up what
has been broken down, striving to restore
| property to the country, and interested
mainly in the great question of providing
food and clothing Tor themselves andfam
lies. These form the great majority of
the people. Then there is another class
an utterly irresponsible class, composed
mainly of young men who were the '' bucks
Of Southern society before the war, and
chiefly 81 lenttheir time in lourging round
! the cOurt-rOoms and bars, IN chicken-fight-
ing and gambling These have been great
ly broken up by the war ; many of them
have been killed, but those WHO remain
are still disturbing elements in the commu
nifty, and are doing much mischief. It is
this class of men, and a number of the
poorer whites who have formed gangs for
horse stealing. It is they who, in some in
stances, have made attacks on officers of the
Freedmens S Bureau, and have ill-treated the
freedmen. It is they who afford the main
pretext for saying that there is among the
people of the South feeling of hostility
toward the United States government. But
they are not the representatives of the
Southern people. They form but an insig
nifcant minority in the community, and
even they are actuated not SO much by
feeling of opposition to the government as
by a reluctance to earn their own llveh
hood by honest labor and individual exer-
tiOn.
Of o1fhontio ho1-a
Cured in the South is patent to every one
familiar with the current news of the day.
But these cases are few and far between,
and it is both unjust and ungenerous to
charge the responsibility for such acts of
lawlessness upon the whole Southern peo-
pie. For some malicious purpose, accounts
of these isolated disorders have been col
ected and grouped together, and sown
broadcast over the North, SO as to give to
the public mind an utterly erroneous i'm
preston as to thecondition of Southern
society. The fact is, that wherever disatfec-
ton and turbulence have manifested them
selves outside the class to whom have above
alluded here has been4some local or spe-
cifc cause to account for it. Lawlessness,
like an epidemic, has extended over partic-
ular belts of the country, and, like an epi-
demic, is equally traceablet ito some. .initiatory
cause. Chief among these causes must be
named bad government, pillage, andoppres-
sion.
For five years the Southern people have
been the subjects of gross misrule. Du-
ring the war their government was Ga mill
tary depotism, dependent solely on the die
tum of an individual Since the war they
have been left more or less in a chaotic
state-their government semi-civil, semi
military, or rather a division of rule be-
+1o, +bo ErooIpoor'S P11roo11
and the provisional governments What
might have been the result of different
policy is not altogether idle to speculate
Every military man who served III the
South during the war will agree that the
heart Of the great mass of the people was
not thoroughly in the struggle. The num-
Der Of desertions from the rebel armies
abundly establishes this fact. Had poll
cy of wise and statesmanlike Cancellation
been followed out immediately after the
close Of the war, it IS more than probable
that the condition and disposition of the
people would now be far better than they
are
But on the subjugation of the South the
national authority III the lately rebellious
States was divided and broken up into op-
posing factions, whose action greatly him
lered the re-establishm ant of civil law and
good order SO much needed among peo
pie demoralized by the most demoralizing
of all agencies-c war. The country was
flooded with Treasury agents who, with
their accomplices and imitators, feeced the
people right and left, returning into the
United States Treasury for all the enor-
nous amount of property they seized and
corfscated, barely enough to pay the cost
of confscation Agents OF the Freedmen's
Bureau stepped between the planter and
the laborer, stirring up strife, perpetuating
antagonism and often adding their quota
of extortion and oppression. On every
hand the people saw themselves robbed
and wronged by agents and self-appointed
agents protesting to act under the sanction
of the United States government. Need it
be wondered at, that among a community
thus dealt with, powerless to resist, and too
weak and prostrated for successful COM
plant, some bitterness and ill-feeling should
arise None but brave and well-meaning