The Placer herald., 1866-07-14
NOBLE LETTER FROM GEN. SHIELDS.
CARRoLroN, Mo-, May lst.
Messrs. Clark II. Green, W. C: B. Gillespie,
d. K. Turk. Macon. Mo.

GENTLEMEN: | deeply regret my inability
to comply with my engagement a. your place
on Monday next. The sudden and serious
ndisposition of member of my family
makes it imperative on me to remain at
home until it be Gods will to relieve ME
from anxiety. beg that you will make this
known to your people as my apology for
falling to attend, and desire this the more
because make it point never 10 fail in an
engagement of this kind, except under the
pressure of overruliDg circumstances. If |
can at any time hereafter atone for this fail.
ure, it will afford me pleasure to do so.
l have never been more thoroughly con,
vinced Of the necessity for exerion than at
the present moment. The peril Of the pres,
ent hour can hardly be overrated. In this
agree with the President, and think it would
be treason to the Constitution and the Union
for men 10 think as do and continue silent
and Indifferent at such crisis. A few years
Of civil war do the work of centuries in all
tering and deteriorating the character of
people, and none but strong and privileged
races ever fully recover from such deterora
ton
Most nations have to pass through a Sec
ond conservative revolution to recover their
lost position, and if we escape from that ca
lamlty it will be by violent political strug-
gle, amounting in substance to a revolution
The bad passions Of human nature once
stimulated by war, survive the occasion and
make the period that succeeds one of bitter
revenge and cruel persecution. 1t was at
first hoped and believed by the friends of
human freedom everywhere, that our new
people, educated under the benign and ele'
vating influence of liberty, would show to
the world that defeated party in a civil war
could accept their defeat with dignity, and
return TO their natural allegiance without
any feeling of dishonor or degradation, and
that the victorious party, disdaining the base
and cowardly qualification Of revenge, and.
confident in their own strength, justice and
magnanimi,y, could welcome back their err.
ing brethren, without seeking or desiring to
insult, humiate or degrade them, or render
them unworthy of that high destiny which
should be the pride and boast of all the free
born citizens of the only great republic in
the world.
This would have exalted our national char
acter in the estimation of Christendom, and,
like all public conduct which is truly great
and noble, would rebound to the interest and
advantage of our own country. The leaders
of the present Congress are giving the most
proof that single despot, how.
ever cruel, can be more magnanimous and
mercful than the inhamed fanatica repre-.
sentative of free people. They are not
content with trying to bumi|iae, degrade
and dishonor the whole Southern people en-
masse, loyal and rebel, but they are deter
mined to perpetuate that degradation and
tasten it upon their innocent posterity, by
dvesting them of all political power, and
investing their slaves Of yesterday with full
political power to dominate over them. They
imagine, and perhaps rightly, that no human
punishment could degrade the Southern
white like that of investing their recent
slaves with power to decide upon their des,
tiny. There is coldly calculated, refined
vindctiveness in this that would do credit to
Ethiopian policy can ever make the South
And besides the qualification of impsh re-
venge, this policy promises them peculiar
for it is one of the characteristics
of this cold. blooded faction, that in even
gratifying their revenge they never lose sight
of their own immediate interest. The whole
political power of the South, when once
can be made available by suita-
bic agents. under their Civil Rights Bill, and
such other kindred measures, as they may be
able to pass over the Presidents veto. The
agents with which they intend to inundate
the South under this BILL would be an into
cradle affliction under any circumstances; but
when it is remembered that this brood of
mean, petty, hungry officials, are to be sent
there to take charge of the negroes and sus-
tain them against the whites, and to enforce
negro equality, we may form some slight
idea Of the pretty little radical pandemonium
they mean to establish in that devoted re-
gion. TO even discuss the unconstitutional.
ity of this bill would be treating it with too
much respect. No man who understands
our system of government will dare to urge
that Congress has the power to enter the
States, select out portion Of their citizens,
change their civil status, place them under
special protection, send special agents to
sustain them against the rest of the citizens,
and remove them when necessary from under
State laws and State tribunals, and place
them under the sole guardianship and pro-
lection of the General Government. 1t
would wrong their intelligence to suppose
that any of the men who voted for that bill
believed it constitutional. President john
son could not act with such men. No Amer.
lean who has white conscience has to be
blackened in America, or crimsoned in Eu'
rope, TO make republican sufficiently red
to do the work of thoroughly radcaized
fanatic.
If this country is to be saved from going
the way of the other republics on this conti
nent, we will owe it under God to Andrew
johnson. If we are ever again to have any
thing worthy Of being called Union, we
will owe it to his loyalty and intrepidity.
But Union kept together by bayonets, or
what is worse, by swarm Of official vermin,
oo,o;rtoJ upIar civil R;uhfc hills n intor.