The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1866-11-21
The New York Misunderstanding.


The Herald uses the following language to-
wards the old Southern leaders in relation to
the constitutional amendment:
1.-THE whole object of the constitutional
amendment is to secure permanent peace and
harmony. A certain class of politicians may
desire to use this question to perpetuate their
power, but the mass of the people only wish,
as they have declared in the elections, to
place the country beyond the chance of future
trouble
We denounce, therefore, the hostile and
impolitic language of the old rebel press and
leaders, as being full of mischief mischief
to the South more than to the North, and we
call upon the Southern people to repudiate
such dangerous guides and agitators. The
constitutional amendment offers the best
terms the South will be able to get, and it
ought to be accepted frankly and promptly.
That will bring speedy restoration Rests
lance will be useless, and, probably, would
be ruinous The South has to depend not
upon its assumed rights but upon the mag
ninimity of the North. By taking the
course we recommend its troubles will be en-
ded; by following that of the old, stupid
sectional leaders who brought on the REBEL
ion, its fate may be disastrous one"
The verdancy of the Herald, in supposing
that these old leaders will, in any event, ac-
cept the amendment, is amusing. The South
e7n people are powerless. They are as thor
oughly in the meshes of these old "guides
and agitators" as they We're during the re-
bellion. The Herald wonders how this can
be. We will inform it. These old "guides
and traitors" have complete possession of all
the Southern State governments. They have
the Railroads, the Banks. with few excep-
tions-the telegraph lines-nearly all the
newspapers-nearlya all the leading business
houses, and good supply of money from
Northern Copperhead merchants with which
to buy cotton. They make political capital
out of the negro, out of their tournaments,
and even out of the Confederate dead, who
ought to be allowed to rest in peace and
honor. They shape and control society,"
They carry their Southern, sectional politics
into business and into every ramifcation of
does not defer to them, and no Southern man
is considered decent or respectable who was
not "a good Confederate, and who does not
religiously hold that in the late conflict the
South was right and the United States wrong.
Does the Herald see it now2 There is no
ground for hoping that the proposed amend
ment will be adopted. The old Southern
leaders will never accept it, because it ex-
cludes them from Office; and many of the
Union men are becoming careless in relation
to it. The latter want something better
something which will, indeed, make treason
odious and loyalty respectable" This amend
ment would not do this, for the following
reason: As soon as it is forced on the South,
these same old leaders will retire themselves,
but they will bring forward other persons
rank secessionists-who have never taken the
oath, and they will be elected to all the Of
fees, on two accounts; first, because of their
devotion to the Confederacy," and secondly,
because Unionists banned by the amend
ment and relieved by Congress, will be re-
garded as the favorites of the Radicals, and
therefore not entitled to the confidence Of
true Southern men, It seems to us that the
federal government, by its delay in reorgan.
! izing these States and placing them on a