The national Republican., 1866-08-04
A WORD OF ADVICE TO THE PEO-
PIE OF THE SOUTH RESPECT
ING THE TWO PHILADELPHIA
CONvENTIONR.

A WORD OF ADVICE TO THE PEO-
PIE OF THE SOUTH RESPECT
ING THE TWO PHILADELPHIA
CONVENTIONS.
Judge JoHN @. USDERwooD, OF Virginia,
and twenty-six others, residents Of the States
now unrepresented in Congress, having en-
barked in an effort to divide the South IL not
to defeat altogether the friends Of the Ad-
ministration, to afford the southern people
IN opportunity for q hearing, Of which they
have hitherto been deprived by C95Gress,
it seems to us proper to tender a&6i0
advice upon the subject. We hope it'wnl be
received in the spirit in which it is given.
Lord BACON, than whom no statesman Of
his time was more philosophical, once advised
Queen ELIZABETH, in respect to the Scotch,
that royal favor is never more painfully be-
slowed than when it is lavished upon peo-
pie who have neither the sense to appreciate
nor the disposition to improve it. In q
speech upon the condition of the West Indies
q century afterwards, WnBERFoRoE, after
citing the foregoing remark Of Lord BACON,
remarked that he found it to be the most un-
welcome task Of his life to labor for the
amelioration Of people incapable of doing
anything for themselves. Defeated in your
efforts to break up the republic, and left, &C
cording to the representations Of your lead
ing men, more terribly punished for your
presumption than any people in modern
times, it naturally enough followed that you
submitted to the National Power with more
or less apprehension for the future. You
had been advised by repeated proclamations
from The President and our commanding
Generals that the object Of the war on our
part was not to oppress you nor to deprive you
of any vested right, but merely to assert and
maintain the authority Of the Federal Gov.
ernment for the preservation Of the Union,
and that when that object was accomplished
the war against you would cease. Some Of
you probably knew that both Houses of Con-
gress, by an unanimous voice expressed in
the summer Of 1861, concurred in that view;
SO that from its common consent down to
the time Of the surrender of your armies. by
Generals LEE and JOHNSTON and the demoral.
ization Of the Richmond establishment, the
declared idea prevailed in every one Of the
three coordinate departments of the govern
ment
1t was not strange to most Of us that some
of you submitted to the authority of the
Government with some reluctance. Your
strength for further resistance was really
exhausted, as has been since admitted by
your military officers; but you had built ex.
pectations upon your hopes Of success so
various, SO exalted and so grand, that some
ofyou failed in fortitude to bear your defeat
with much complacency. But the wisest
among you, those who had the best inside
view of your civil and military condition
during the war who knew from to time the
actual wane of the rebellion, and who were
therefore the best prepared for the final ar
bitrament, did accept the situation with as
much Of manly grace as could be reasonably
expected Of men under the circumstances.
And but for the happening Of that untoward
aud shocking circumstance, the assassination
of President LINCOLN and the attempt to slay
Secretary SEWARD and his two sons, COM
bined with indubitable evidences of a con-
spiracy to murder President JOHNSON, Sec
rotary STANTON, and Lieut.. Gen. GRANT, it
is believed that the magnanimous spirit
which was manifested towards your insur-
gent armies in that heroic Generals terms
for their surrender would have been gen.
orally exercised toward You by the great
body Of loyal people.
Occurring as that event did upon the heels
of the capitulation Of Gen. LEE, and the STAN.
pede Of JEFFERSON DAVIS and his pretended
cabinet, it seemed to have been born of the
same inhnman spirit which carved the skulls
OF our brave boys in blue, who fell at Bull
Run, into drinking-cups and armlets starved
our soldiers whilst imprisoned at Anderson
vile and Salisbury, and undertook to destroy
whole communities Of men, women, and chill
dren by the distribution of infected clothing,
contrary not only to the laws of war, But to
the commonest dictates Of humanity. 1t bore
so many Of the badges Of similar acts known
to have been encouraged, il not positively
authorized by the Richmond establishment,
that the-people at large in the loyal States
regarded it as the deliberate act Of the rebels
and that, too, after terms of surrender had
been accorded to them from public policy,
far more lenient than any of them had the
right to expect. Viewed in every light in
which II cogid be then contemplated, the
whole affair was 80 4tVocous and shocking
that it congealed the blood Of our people in
their veins, and closed up, for the time, the
fountains Of magnanimity towards you which
had few days before been so generally and
generously opened.
1t is far from our present intention to re.
proseh you as people with that atrocious
conspiracy. We leave the determination Of
the responsibility for that great outrage to
the proper tribunals. Fidelity to history
seems to require us to remind you of it, not
in order to assure you how and why it was
that Northern sentiment toward you at that
time underwent SO suddena change, and why
and how ii wa. that the day of reconciliation
between the two sections Of the country has
been SO long postponed.
With the DrOfOundest aense ~ ,..lI,, d,t,