The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1866-12-28

duction of capital--thesc arc the two great
and pressing needs Of this impoverished,
war wasted, and disorganized South. And
that both labor and capital would naturally
flow abundantly into these States with their
balmy climate, illimitable water-power, and
mineral treasures would be altogether a
matter of course, provided only our politi-
cal status and relations were once fixed
upon Jus, basis Without this they will
not come no matter what resolutions our
Legislature may pass to invite and encou-
rage them. Men who have money TO in
vest in mining and manufactures, still more
that no less valuable element of popula-
ton, colonies of hardy, resolute immi-
10 win their livelihood from the soil
and leave home for their chill
dren, both avoid instinctively a
land where they cannot be sure
they will be suffered to enjoy in peace
the plenty which their energy may create.
The Agricultural Convention which lately
aSsSmoiSh III 1A'lS CITY uHuouo'Suil hN""'
well. Some OF the suggestions made by
members Of that body, as that of offering
leases on favorable terms, cutting up large
estates and selling portion of them in
moderate-sized farms, might answer an ex-
cellent purpose under other circumstances,
in attracting industrious settlers and in
creasing the products Of the soil but in
present circumstances even such measures
as these, even though reinforced by lcgiSla-
tive appropriations as further inducement
to coloniStS, can serve no purpose at all.
ColonistS will not come. They have vague
fears of our future. They imagine that the
title TO the lands we should offer to sell
them may be called in question or annulled
by the furious Radical party which rules
the North. They fear exceptional taxa
ton. They even fear that a course of OPP
preston, insult, and Spol!atiOn may lead to
turbulence, violence, and military cOer-
cion. But men designing TO settle in a
new country may expect, indeed, hard
work and hard times at first; but they love
TO feel the assurance, at least, that what
they SOW they will reap in peace and
that they may sit every man under his
vine and fig tree, with none to make
them afraid. Now the SUMMERS and the
STEvENsES make them afraid. Therefore
immigrants do 60, and will 60, to some
more tranquil land, even though its climate
be ruder and its soil more ungratcful than
ours; therefore capital and enterprise hold
aloUf, and wait to set what the end will be.
Such is the fact, and we have no remedy
at all. 1t is idle TO preach to our people
and exhort them to leave politics alone, to
turn their eyes away from Washington and
from Congress, and apply themselves to
their own material interests. The thing
cannot be done to any appreciate extent.
Onr first material interest is, that we enjoy
the right Of Selt-government, and that we
be not afflicted, nor even threatened,
with the abolition of our State organizl-
ton, and military government taking its
orders from that very Washington.
Now, the people of the South would do
much and sacrifice much to obtain peace
and a quiet life and the chance ofreCoyer-
ing our material prosperity byindustry and
the use OF our own great resources. And
the dominant faction in Congress know well
that such is our dispoSition-that having
laid down the arms Of war, we long TO taste
the sweets of peace and it is therefore
they will give us no peace. In our great
anxiety to employ ourselves freely and
fearlessly TO the pursuits of induStry-in
the urgent and most pressing need which
is upon us 10 settle our social and polti-
cal condition, they see a hope of forcing Us
at last to accept that one grand object of
all their policy, the Constitutional
Amendment" 1t is not enough that We
are powerless, disarmed, and in perfect
quiet; not enough that they may, by their
Overwhelming majority, enact that we are
rebels, prisoners of war, traitors, and per-
iurers not enough that they can, if they
please, create dozen new States, and for
mally abolish the Constitution, the law,
and the courts; all this is not enough.
We must join them in all these acts
the South must brand felon upon her own
brow-the Chivalry must eat dirt-the old
upholders and defenders of States rights
must themselves give the fatal blow to all
they ever held dear and sacred. Here is
the real motive Of that tremendous array
of measures of subjugatiOn with which
the present Congress opens. They know
what deep and pressing need we have to
see calm in our political sky, therefore
they coniurc up storms in all quarters OF
the compass the more evident is our ne
cessity for fair settlement, the farther off
they make it appear. Nothing can be
done, we are assured, 10 restore TO US any
civil existence whatever unless we first
sign our own shame. And they threaten
that if the present generation continue in
flexible, the next may comply. They mean
TO say that after we are all dead, our chill
dren will be ready to vote that their fathers
were perjured felons.
This speculation is not promising. Yet
none can deny how completely the present
uncertainty of our condition arrests i'm
,,roro,napt. scares aWay caDital discour-