The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1866-09-05
Spirit of the southern Press.

We propose to lay before our readers from
time to time, extracts from Southern news
papers showing the spirit OF the Southern
press. Nearly all the Southern newspapers
labor to justify the late rebellion. They re-
gard what they call the lest causen as more
sacred than the Union cause, and they brand
all Southern men especially, who do not
agree with them in their views, as skuikers,
towards, traitors, and "mean white trash"
Some Of them are more eutspoken and bitter
than Others, but they al belong to the same
class, and are distinguished from each other
only by deeper and Fighter shades. These
papers seem to be well sustained by patron
age. Many of them are large and well prin-
ted We are bound, therefore, to believe
that they represent the people among whom
they circulate We wish We could believe
otherwise, but the evidence will not permit
us to do so.
We begin with the papers of our own town.
The Sentinel is the organ of Gov. Worth.
1t is Union paper, provided it can have the
Union on Its own terms. 1t regards the great
Union leaders in Congress, who devoted
themselves for years TO the work of suppress
ing the rebellion, as but little inferior in
wickedness to demons; and it omits no op-
portunity to misrepresent and malign them.
1t very graeiousiy announced, some months
since, that uncondiienal Union men might
remain here In peace, provided they would
behave themselves, but it devotes much of
its space to disappearing and abusing
them, and seeks to make the impression that
they forfeited their honor during the rebeIl-
ion by their Efforts to arrest the war and Sc
cure peace. 1t apologies for every act of
despotism during the rebellion, by which
our people were impressed, distressed, i'm
poverished, and slaughtered; and it takes
special pains to produce the impression that
there is no foundation for the fact, that in
many of our Western Counties Union men
have been prosecuted under the forms of
State law, while secessionists have been al
lowed to 60 unpunished.
This newspaper the Sentinel, wants the
State restored to the Union just now, and
just as it is, for no other reason than that
its partizans are in control of the State gov
eminent, If the State could only get back
at this time and in this garb, the Sentinel
and its partizans would feel that their for
tunes had been made. The federal govern
ment could not then interpose to protect
loyal men, and they would have every thing
their own way. We have no hesitation in
expressing the opinion, based on thorough
knowledge of these partizans, that if they
had full sway they would call Convention,
vest all power in their own hands, and pre-
scribe a test oath by which every citizen of
the State who could not swear that he SYM
pathized with and aided the Confederate
cause, would be deprived of the right to vote
and to hold office.
The Sentinel Of the 23d August says, if its
peculiar views in relation to restoration fail
"The Union uiN haze failed republican
liberty, regulated by law, will have failed;
and either despotism, like that of the old
dynasties of Europe or disintegration, like
that which distracts the Southern half of our
continent, will ensue.n
The Sentinel no doubt prefers "disintegra-
ton" The so-caled Confederacy would
have-been g disintegration.n
The Progress, of this City, which was once
Union paper, very emphatically threatens
the Unionists of this State with sword, fire
murder, and rapine," if they do not abandon
their principles. That paper would not only
murder the male Unionists of this State but
itwould devote their unoffending families to
murder and rapine.n That paper says:
"We have never accused the loyalists in
our State of disposition to betray her in
terests. We may, therefore, invoke them to
consider well their present duty. If they
persist in blindly yielding to the spirit of en-
eroachment with which they have been met
since the termination of the war; if they con-
tnue to perpetuate old differences which
should long ago have been banished by cor
alal friendship, it is not difficult to foresee the
consequences likely to result from such pol
'V' The soord, fire, murder and rapine