Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1866-10-11
More ISLANDERS.


We hadsupposed that the agitation caused
by the near approach of the elections
in the Northern States would stir up the
filthy sediments at the South. Political
capital must be had, and that, too, of the
most startling character. SANDERS and
falsehoods must be manufactured, and the
willy tools appointed to do the dirty work
must not hesitate to consider the words
employed or the locality designated
"Rebels," Treason" and Rebellion, y
with iudicious intermixture of injustice
to Union men," "cruelty to freedmen,
and the "re-establishment of slavery" are
the INGREDIENTS of the dishes served up for
Northern appetites by Southern correspon-
dents of Radical papers. So far as our ex-
perience goes, we have never known such
willful and disgraceful misrepresentation
of Southern society and feeling as is ex'
hibited in letters from the South published
in Northern papers, written, we suppose,
usually, by class of writer's who have no
standing either here OF at home.
Below we publish from the Chicago Re
publican, its editorial comments upon a let
ter from this city to the Indianapolis Jour-
nal. We do this more to let it be seen by
such of our Northern fellow-citizens who
have settled among us, than by our own
people. Such ridiculous ISLANDERS and
falsehoods do not affect us except SO far as
votes are made for the Radicals and the
basest passions of the Northern masses lie
infamed against us, but on the other
hand it is not calculated to draw
our people towards those of the North
who have in good faith settled among us
and are industriously and gentlemanly
pursuing their various avocations.-
Such exhibitions of malice shows most
conclusively that the feeling between
our citizens is not what it should be.
We certainly would not be understood as
insinuating that we suspect this letter to
have been written by any of the Northern
gentlemen who are doing business here, or
that they would encourage or countenance
anything of the kind, but if the proper
tone and disposition existed between oiti-
zens whose interests and welfare are the
same, the authors of such base calumnies
would be ferreted out and frowned down by
a healthy public sentiment. It is impossi
BILE for any community to prosper that is
not only divided in interests, but one por-
ton is engaged in publishing ibels upon
the other, intending to do it injury. We
had hoped that continued association and
community of interest would finally prove
stronger than sectional prejudices and polit-
ical aspirations, but it would seem that we
are doomed to disappointment.
If reunion is ever to be accomplished; if
restoration is to be anything more than an
empty sound if reconciliation is truly de-
sired if the wounds of the late war are
ever to be healed if the Government of
the United States is to be what it's founders
intended it; if Liberty is to be something
more than mockery and cheat, it must be
accomplished by other means than by will
full and malicious SANDERS by unreliable and
unknown scribblers, who goaboutunder the
convenient garb of preachers and teachers,
in order to foster hatred and fasten on the
country the ruin which now threatens.
The malignant hate exhibited and theterri-
BILE prosecutions being attempted by the
Northern people, in this their hour of tri-
umph, towards the conquered and helpless,
but we submit, honest and law-abiding CT
zens of the South, convinces us more and
more, that the Southern people were right
in their efforts to separate from them, and
their failure is their honorable misfortune.
Having failed, however, we should do all
in our power not only to restore the Union,
but reconcile the sections, and if our efforts
prove fruitless, we can at least witness the
failure of this great experiment of mans
capacity for self-government, with clear
consciences.
The article referred to is as follows
North Carolina Affairs.
A correspondent of the Indianapolis Journal,
writing from Wilmington, n. c., gives a deplora-
BILE account of affairs in that State Expecting to
find North Carolina thelEden of Southern Uni
onists, he discovers it to be very pandemonium
Of disloyalty. The people who make themselves
known and felt arc, almost without exception,
"bitter, unrepentant rebels, who glory in their
crime of treason" To have been prominent
rebel is a passport to position, and no man who
was not actively identified with the rebellion can
obtain preferment.
Under the speclous preteNt that alsresldents OF
the State equal before thelaw, the military and
the Freedmen's Bureau have been required to
commit all cases to the civil authorities. Union
men are readily indicted by juries composed of
ex-rebels; and numbers of such now lie in isI
der indictments, waiting a trial which will never
take place. upon charges for offences said to have
been committed during the war. 1t is impossible
for any Union man, especially any freedman, to
obtain justice. Under the regime of the courts
too, slavery is being in essence re-established-
colored children being forced away, various
pretexts, and bound as apprentices to their form
er masters Not unfrequently, persons of eighteen
years, at work for good wages, are thus consign-
ed to a new slavery. The correspondent says:
GA poor colored woman told me yesterday that
her former master, who lives in Robson county,
had come to her house, near this city, and took
away by force all her children, six in number, the
eldest girl of nineteen, brought them to this city,
and had them bound to him by the court, and that
they we're then in Jail awaiting the time when he
could remove them to his plantation. In this way
they have the work of the young and able-bodied
while tho old and i,tirn lcho haze been out
an their serU1ce, StdY'Ue.'
Wilmington is a fair representative of the new
order of things in this reconstructed "State."-
The City Marshal is rebel General, and as Chief
of Police, commands a force composed exclusively
of rebel soldiers. Northern men assaulted by
these creatures the merest pretexts, or no pre-
texts at all. Restoration must be little short of
complete in State whose principal CITY is thus