The Norfolk post. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1865-1866, 1866-02-03

will bring all rightin time to attempting
to do more at more, with moral GER
tainty of failure, The fact that ultra
Radicals and ultra Conservatives con-
Cured in opposing this Amendment will
commend it to the favor of the great
majority. We have strong hopes of its
success. And now let us hope that the
Finances, Currency, Resumption and
improved and simplified Taxation, will
soon claim the attention of Congress-"
APOLOGY FOR WEARING OF THE BLUE"
In our structures yesterday, OH the
card of "U. s. A." in regard to- social
life in Richmond, and the Ballard
House "Hop," we did West Point some
injustice, for which we hasten to apollo
gize and explain. Captain Anderson is
not graduate of West Point; although
regular. The Petersburg Inder falls
into the following reflections upon read
ing Captain Anderson's card:
OUR ENEMIES Nor SOLDIERS. We
find i'm the Examiner of yesterday the
following letter, written by q Federal
officer in the city of Richmond, in reply
to some structures of that journal with
reference to ball at the Ballard House.
Although unconscious of having given
any cause of offence to- any person in
that category, we reprint the letter, as
an act of courtesy and justice to q class
of men who have a very unpleasant
office to perform among us, and who
may complain with some reason, of the
difficulty that arises in finding opportu-
mites to defend themselves.
There are officers everywhere through
out the South, the success of whose
thieying cor,pensates them for the loss
of that social recognition which they can
scarcely expect here, since they would
be denied it at home. Butthere are also
numbers of Federal officers throughout
the country who appreciate the feelings
of the people among whom they are or
dered to discharge their functions, and
who deserve, therefore. to he heard
when they conceive themselves ag-
grieved.
We are very free to admit that we
| would be delighted to know thai by to-
morrow's sun every one of them would
| he on his way to his Northern home
never again to appear in our midst with
uniform on, and it is not improbable
that the majority of this class as ardent
ly desire to be relieved from duty.
After all, it is not the soldier against
whom the undying execration Of the
South should be hurled. Those of them
whose opinions are entitled to much
respect, in the main, conducted and ex-
pressed themselves with liberality. II
| is that miserable set of vampires who
are sucking the blood of the nation at
| Washington, who are patching and
| botching the work of the patriots of the
last century, who are legislating away
| the ordinances of God, who are adding q
new illustration of the political truth
that the vilest of despotisms is that of a
mob-these are the creatures who are
| making the restoration of a true Union
difficult, il not impossible.
No one who knows anything of the
| feelings of the true men of the land
| North or South, will gainsay the state.
| ment, that the day of Peace is farther
| off now than il was six months ago
| that the regard for the Union is less, the
| disposition to make common cause in q
| foreign war less, the desire to stand by
| the old land less, the hope i'm the future,
and the satisfaction in the present less
| by long odds, than half year since. A
| pail of gloom and despOndency-al
| despair, is stretching over the southern
| people as they find their frank and mag
unanimous acceptance of defeat treated
| with such a shop-keeping suspicion.
Other nations who lost their liberties
| laid not down their arms when the wal
was over, but betOok themselves to a
predatory warfare that filed their land
with strife; but this people surrendered
| at once. Other people, in the face of the
destruction of their independence,
abandoned their homes and sought in
exile to Danish the melancholy spectacle
of subjugation; but the best of our peo-
pie who could, remain behind and join
| in the labor of reconstruction. Other
governments, when threatened with
defeat in arms, applied for the protec-
! ton of more powerful states, to whom
| they promised obedience as the reward
of victory; the Confederacy fought for
| freedom, and scorned any master, and
and falling in the fight of arms, they
sought no relief in diplomacy.
| Yet what is the result? The Congress
of powerful nation has now spent two
months exclusively in attempts at out
raging and Illuminating this people,
| whose conduct under circumstances so
trying to a brave people, has been, not
only so unexceptionable, but so excep-
| tionably honorable and admirable.
The cry, muttered, it is true, and
muffied for fear of bayonets and dun
geons, but all the more rooted for this
suppression, is coming up from every
quarter of the land, Voutd it not have
been aceU had are died rather than put
ourselves and our children in the hands
| of such brutal foes?
| And they are sending this record OF
| their feelings abroad to the world, not
| through theirmuzzled press, but through
| the freedom of correspondence, and the
answer is coming back from exiles in
many lands. "come out to us and enjoy
your freedom. Come to country
where man is not required to take a
| test oath before he can defend client or
administer sacrament" a land where,
to borrow an expression from letter
written by distinguished exile, recent
| ly received in this city, "men wear no
collars marked u. s."
1t is not the army, but the Legisla-
ture that is responsible in the main for
| this discomfort. 1t is they, and not the
| soldiers, against whom the indignant, if
powerless, protest of this people is
raised.