The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1866-08-23

i purpose or the ability Of the people of the
I Union to protect and defend under sall cons
/ tigencies and by whatever means may be res
i CURED, its honor and its welfare.
i These would in our Judgment, be full and
conclusive answers to the plea thus advanced
for the exclusion of these States from the
Union. But we say further, that this plea
rests upon a complete Misrepresentation or an
unjust preversion of existing facts jss
We do not hesitate to affirm, that there is
no section of the country where the Constl-
| tuition and laws of the United States find a
more prompt and entire obedience than in
those States, and among those people who
were lately in arms against them or where
| there is less purpose or less danger of any
| future attempt to overthrow their authority.
1t would seem to be both natural and in
evitable that, in States and sections so re-
Gently swept by the whirlwind of war, where
all the ordinary modes and methods OF or
ganiZed industry have been broken up, and
the bonds and influences that guarantee so.
cial order have been destroyed-where thou
sands and ten of thousands of turbulent
| spirits have been suddenly loosed from the
| discipline of war; and thrown without re-
sources or restraint upon disofganlZed and
chaotic society," and where the keen sense OF
defeat is added to the overthrow OF ambl-
ton and hope, scenes of violence should defy
for time the imperfect discipline of law,
patriotic and well disposed. 1t is unques-
tionably true that local disturbances of this
kind, accompanied by more or less OF vlo-
lence do still occur. But they are confined
entirely to the cities and larger towns of the
Southern States, where different races and
interests are brought most closely in contact,
and where passions and Tesentments are al
ways most easily fec and famed into out
break; and even there they are quite much
the fruit of untimely and hurtful political
agitation as of any hostility on the part of
the people to the authority of the National
Government
But the concurrent testimony of those best
acquainted with the condition of society and
the state of public sentiment in the South
including that of its representatives in this
Convention-establishes the fact that the
great mass of the Southern people accept
with as full and sincere submission as do the
people of the other States, the re-establlshed
supremacy of the national authority, and are
prepared in the most loyal spirit, and with
/; zeal quickened alike by their interest and
their pride, to cooperate with other States
and sections in whatever may be necessary to
defend the rights, maintain the honor and
promote the welfare of our common coun-
try. History affords no instance where a
people, powerful in numbers, in resources
and in public spirit, after war so long in
its duration, so destructive in its progress,
and so adverse in Its issue, have accepted
defeat and its consequences with so much of
good faith as has marked the conduct of the
people lately in instruction against the Uni
ted States Beyond all question this has
been largely due to the wise generosity with
which their enforced surrender was accepted
by the President of the United States and
the Generals in immediate command of their
armies, and to the liberal measures which
were afterward taken to restore order, tran
guilty and law to the States where all had
for the time been overthrown. No steps
could have been better calculated to COM
mand the respect, win the confidence, revive
the patriotism and secure the permanent and
atfectionate allegiance of the people of the
South to the Constitution and laws of the
Union than those which have been so firmly
taken and steadfastly pursued by the
President of the United States And if that
confidence and loyalty have been since i'm
paired if the people of the South are to-day
less cordial in their allegiance than they were
upon the close of the war, We
believe it Is due to the changed tone of the
Legislative Department of the General Gov
eminent toward them; to the action by which
Congress has endeavored to supplant and
defeat the Presidents wise and benifcent
policy of restoration; to their exclusion from
all participation in our common Government;
to the withdrawal from them of rights con-
ferred and guaranteed by the Constitution,
and to the evident purpose of Congress, in
the exercise of a usurped and unlawful ali-
thority, to reduce them from the rank of free
and equal members of Republic of States,
with rights and dignities unimpaired, to the
condition of conquered provinces and a
conquered people, in all things subordinate
and subject to the will of their conquerors
free only to obey laws in making which they
are not allowed to share.
No people has ever yet existed whose
loyalty and faith such treatment long con-
tinued would not ALLEVIATE and impair. And
the ten millions of Americans who live in
the South would be unworthy citizens of
free country, degenerate sons of an heroic
ancestory, unfit ever to become guardians of
the rights and liberties bequeathed to us by
the fathers and founders of this republic, if
they could accept, with accomplishing SUBJ
the humiliations thus sought to
be imposed upon them. Resentment of in
Justice is always and everywhere essential to
freedom; and the spirit which prompts the
States and people lately in instruction, but
insurgent now no longer, to protest against
the imposition of unjust and degrading con-
makes them all the more worthy to
share in the government of free common
wealth, and gives still firmer assurance of the
future power and freedom of the Republic.
For whatever responsibility the Southern
people may have incurred in resisting the
OF the National Government and
in taking up arms for its overthrow, they
may be held to answer, as individuals, be
fore the judicial tribunals of the land and
for that conduct, as societies and organized
communities, they have already paid the
most fearful penalties that can fall on offend
ing States in the losses, the sufferings and
of unsuccessful war But what
ever may be the guilt or the punishment of
the conscious authors of the instruction,
candor and common justice demand the
that the great mass of those who
became involved in its responsibility acted
upon what they believed to be their duty, in
defence of what they had been taught to be-
lieve their rights, or under a compulsion,
physical and moral, which they were power
less to resist. Nor can it be amiss to remem-
Der that, terrible as have been the bereave-
ments and the losses of this war, they have
fallen exclusively upon neither section and
upon neither party-that they have fallen,
indeed, with far greater weight upon those
with whom the war began that in the death