The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-04-27


Constitutional Amendment will drive
10000 people from the State, is a false
hood that does not grow any less APP
parent by iteration. There are not half
that number of persons in the State to
whom the amendment will apply, and
very few of them would flictirrepara-
BILE damage OH the commonwealth, If
for any reason they should emigrate.
The purpose of such statements is sim
ply to give this class whatever respecta-
bility can be made to attach to numbers.
Twenty thousand rebels in the State
would make it much less disreputable
to be one than the half or fourth that
number. This game was practiced all
through the war by pnpers sympa-
thizing with the rebellion, they seek
ing to add to its responsibility by mag
nifying its armies.
The Amendment ia the Southwest.
all accounts from the Southwestern
section of the State go to show that
even there where there is large Gle
ment of returned rebels and we would
naturally expect to find great many
who sympathize with them, the Amend
ment to the Constitution will be adopted
by large majorities. The Union men
in that region are confident of the re-
suit. a private letter from Kanawha
Court House, written by one of the
most intelligent and influential gentle
man in that county contains the follow
ing passage:
eve think we shall be able to carry
the Amendment to the Constitution by
sweeping maiorities i'll this section of
the State. The necessity for such a
measure is becoming more apparent
every day. Should we permit the State
Government to pass into the hands OF
this eX-reDel party l have no idea that
we could stay here at all. 1t would be
intolerable-worset than they are now
having matters in kentucky or the Old
Dominion"
The same gentleman states that Col.
Ben Smith came 10 grief last month at
Roane Court House. He went up there
court being in SESSION. to make n
speech, expecting to have things all his
own way. 1t happened that Maj. r. S.
Brown, OF Jackson county, was there
greatly to Col. Smiths surprise $50 the
letter says.) When Col. Smith had
concluded Maj. Brown took up the case
for the Union men and used up the
Colonel very badly. The Union people
there were in extacies over the result.
The conservative leaders are exceeding
ly unfortunate in their little enterprises
of this sort.
But recurring to the prospects of
the amendment, we have before us a
letter from a leading Union man in
Boone county, and we find even there
the Union men are buoyant with con-
fdence. We quote q few paragraphs {;
''Itis the opinion of many that the
vote in this part of the State will be
larger than was expected last winter,
and that the amendment will be car
ried two to one. From all that can
see, I believe it certainly will be car
ried by a large majority. The rebs
seem much cowed to what they were
last fall; and many of them acknowl-
made bad matters to be worse with
them"
Our readers will be amused by what
follows. The writer adds:
"Some wild tales have been spread
through the country lately by leading
rebels, to the effect that President J Ohm
son had called out 10000 troops to pro-
tect his life and disband Congress. This
seemed to revive them considerably,
and they began to tell that they knew
it would be so; but the papers do not
bear them out and they are simmering
down, and will have to wait for anOth-
er chance to raise the wind. We have
not got our mails yet in these counties,
and you cannot conceive how willing,
nay, anxious, these rebels are to hear
and seem to believe the wild inventions
of their leaders,"
Nice people they would be TO sit in
our Legislature and control the policy
of the State! Yet these are the fellows
on whose account so much sympathy is
expended and who are so atrociousIy
wronged by being kept out of power a
little while.
There is one obvious fact that crops
out of all the information that comes
from the border counties, from which
most of the rebels went who Joined the
rebel army, and to which most of those
returned, who returned at all. It is
that the Union men there are, to man,
unwilling to concede that these rebels,
who have not yet worn out the blood
stained grey of the confederacy, shall
be at once and unreservedly admit
ted to full political fellowship and
equality. Having fought them from first
to last, by their votes before the rebel
lion began, and with their muskets af-
forwards, they know what these re-
bells are, what their principles are, and
how far they may be trusted. They
know what their own present compare
lively enviable position has cost. They
have paid the price in blood, and in
the ruin of their homesteads. They are
not going to surrender now, for they
fully appreciate the consequences.
They know that if they don't keep the
enemy disarmed, he will turn on them
the moment he gets weapons in his
hands. They indulge no hair splitting
subtleties. 1t is with them plain ques-
ton of self-preservation, and we have
high conservative" authority for say
ing they have that right. 1t is only
here, where we never smelt powder,
and there never was an armed rebel
within a hundred miles of US, and
where we do not know practically any
thing about the desperate, unscrupu-
lous, treacherous and revengefu1 char
acter of the great mass of those who