The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1866-09-19
THE APPEAL OF THE LOYAL MEN
OF THE SOUTH TO THEIR FEL.
LOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED

The representatives of eight millions of
| American citizens appeal for protection and
justice to their friends and brothers in the
States that have been spared the crueltles OF
| rebellion, and the direct horrors of civil war.
Here on the spot where freedom was prof
fered and pledged by the fathers Of the Re-
| public. we implore your help against reor-
| ganized oppression, whose sole object is to
remit the control of our destinies to the con-
| trivers of the rebellion after they have been
vanqnished in honorable battle-thus at once
to punish us for our devotion to our country,
| and to intrench themselves in the official for
| tifcations of the government.
! Others have related the thrilling story of
our wrongs from reading and observation
| We come before you as unchallenged witness
es and speak from personal knowledge our
| sad experience If you fail us, we are more
utterly deserted and betrayed than if the
contest of arms had been decided against
| us; for in that case even victorious slavery
would have found profit in the speedy par
don of those, who had been among its BRAY
/, est foes.
| Unexpected perfdy in the highest place of
the government, accidentally filled by one
who adds cruelty to ingratitude. and forgives
the guilty as he proscribes the innocent, has
stimulated the almost extingulshed revenge
of the beaten conspirators; and now the reb-
els. who offered to yield everything to save
| their own lives, are seeking to consign to us
bloody graves
Where we expected beDefactor we ind q
prosecutor. Having lost our champion, we
return to you, who can make Presidents and
punish traitors.
Our last hope under God is in the unity
and firmness of the States that elected Abra
ham Lincoln and defeated Jefferson Davis.
The best statement of our case is the ap-
palling, vet unconscious confession of An
drew johnson, who, in savage hatred of his
own record, proclaims his purpose to clothe
four millions of traitors with the power to
impoveish and degrade eight millions of
loyal men.
Our wrongs bear alike upon all races, and
our tyrants, unchecked by you, will award
the same fate to white and black.
We can remain as we are, only as interiors
and victims.
We may fiy from our homes, but we should
fear to trust our fate with those who, after
denouncing and defeating treason, refused
to right those who had bravely assisted them
in the good work.
Till we are wholly rescued, there is neither
peace for you nor prosperity for US.
We cannot better define at once our wrongs
and our wants than by declaring that, since
Andrew johnson affiliated with his early
slanderers and our constant enemies, his
hand has been laid heavily upon every earn
est loyalist in the South. History, the just
Judgment of the present, and the certain
confirmation of the future, invite and COM
mand us to declare
That, after rejecting his own remedies for
restoring the Union, he has resorted to the
weapon of traitors to bruise and beat down
patriots.
That, after declaring that none but the
loyal should govern thereconstructed South,
he has practised upon the maxim that none
but traitors shall rule.
That, while in the North he has removed
conscientious men from Office and filled
many of the vacancies with the sympathizers
of treason, in the South he has removed the
proved and trusted patriot and selected the
equally proved and convicted traitor
That, after brave men who had fought for
the old flag have been nominated for posi-
tions. their names have been recalled and
avowed rebels substituted.
who stands fast to Andrew Johnson's cove
nants from 1861 to 1865, has been ostracized.
That, he has corrupted the local courts by
offering premiums for defiance of the laws of
Congress, and by openly discouraging the
observance of the oath against treason.
That, while refusing to punish one single
conspicuous traitor, though thousands had
earned the penalty of death, more than a
thousand of devoted Union citizens have
been murdered in cold blood since the sur
render of Lee, and in no case have their as
sassins been brought to judgment
That, he has pardoned some of the worst
of the rebel criminals, North and South, in
Guiding some who have taken human life un-
der circumstances of unparalleled atrocity.
That, while denouncing and lettering the
operations of the Freeedmens Bureau. he,
with full knowledge of the falsehood, has
charged that the black men are lazy and re
bellious, and has concealed the fact that more
whites than blacks have been protected and
fed by that noble organization, and that,
while declaring that it was corruptly mana
ged and expensive to the government, he has
connived at system Of profigacy in the
use of the public patronage and public mon
ey wholly without parallel, save when the
traitors bankrupted the Treasury, and
sought to disorganize and scatter the army
and the navy, only to make it more easy to
capture and destroy the government.
That, while declaring against the injustice
of leaving eeven States unrepresented, he
has refused to authorize the liberal plan of
Congress, simply because it recognizes the
loyal majority and refuses to perpetuate the
traitor minority.
That, in every State south of Mason and
Dixon's line his "policy" has wrought the
most deplorable consequences social, moral
and political.
It has emboldened returned rebels to
threaten civil war in Maryland, Missouri,
West Virginia and Tennessee unless the pat
riots who saved and sealed these States to
the old flag surrender before their arrogant
demands.
It has corrupted high State officials, cleo
ted by Union men and sworn to enforce the
laws against returned rebels, and made them
the mere instruments of the authors of the
rebellion.
1t has encouraged new alienation be-
tween the sections, and by impeding emf
grafton to the South has erected formidable
barriers against free and friendly intercourse
with our countrymen in the North and West.
1t has allowed the rebel soldiery to perse-
cute the teachers of the colored schools, and
to burn the churches in which the freedmen
have worshipped the living God
That a system so barharous should have
eliminated in the frightful riot at Memphis,
and the still more appalling massacre at New
Orleans, was as natural as that bloody war
should flow from the teachings Of John G.
inoIho,,y o,n6 Tafforo<,r, nouso
Andrew johnson is responsible for all
l,1o oud cr,1o1tior Ao