Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1866-12-04
How we might have been Reconstructed

DSSAA ASS SS~A~s~>
Has any one reflected, says the Richmond
Times, how the course of the dominant party at
the North is insensibly and inevitably moulding
US into separate people? Cruel and tyranni-
cal legislation, remorseless party spirit and poll
teal persecution are accomplishing more to alien
ate us than the sword would have done, had
we welded it ever so VIGOROUSLY. Indeed, had
we been successful in our struggle for indepen-
dence, 1t was maintained by some OF our wlsest
statesmen that an alliance, offensive and defen-
sive, would have been the most sagacious meas
ure which could have been adopted by the
North and South. From such starting point
it is not difficult to see how, when the old links
OF trade and commerce should have been re-
newed, we should steadily have drifted again
towards ground upon which reunion would
have been practicable and desirable; and the
lessons taught to each party by the war and the
temporary separation, would have prevented
any future conflict or necessity for exercising the
right of secession. Had our right of self-gov-
eminent been conceded-had the maynard
sisters, as General Scott called the Southern
States, been permitted to go in peace, Congress
would not have found reconstruction as difficult
as, to the Congressional mind, it appears to be.
With no proud and insolent victors hectoring
and bullying us-with no bloody gulf separating
us from the North-what would be more natu-
raj than that public sentiment in the South
would soon have reversed the hot and hasty
sentence OF separation? Nay, had we triumph
ed, that chivalric and impulsive spirit which
characterizes our people would, in all probabil-
ity, have magnanimously offered again to the
North that Union to which we were more at
tached than they, until they made it unendura-
BILE by the use and abuse of power.
View the question in any light we choose
and it seems that almost any conclusion would
have been more favorable for reconstruction
than victory for the North, used as it has been
by the Radical majority. The Union is no long.
er based upon the affections of the people and
the consent of the governed it is compulsory
Union cemented by blood, built upon graves
and kept together by force and violence When
crushed and humbled by defeat, sorrowing ovel
lost hopes buried kindred and desolated homes
we might have been easily won by kind words
and friendly deedsF What brave foe could even
resist OF repel the magnanimous and generous
| advances of his rival, when beaten in fan
fight? It is sad to reflect that we might have
been SO easily won, and yet but few at the North,
save the President, realized the fact and under
stood the Southern people.
But let it pass; that great adjuster, Time,
and that impartial judge, History, will square
the accounts between us and those who. will not
permit quarrel to be settled, either after the
manner of men or of beasts, after having imi
tated both in their vain and fruitless efforts to
arrive at a Cancellation. If they had no kind
words and acts to win US, can it be expected
that we are to be won by harsh tongues, bitter
pens and cruel blows. An ounce of kindness
will go further with us than ton of persecu-
ton, and any other reconstruction built upon
any other than kind foundation, will fall like
house of folly reared on sand.