The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1867-02-27
General Thomas gives the Rebellion one
more Blow--The Tone of Southern
Sentiment.

more BlOW-.The ZONE VI SOusAetn
u Sentiment.
HEADS. Dept. OF TENNESSEE,
LOUISVILLE, KY, Feb. 0, 1857.
Charles H. Smith, Mayor of the city of Rome,
Georgia, and others =
GENTLEMEN = The Major General COM
handing the department directs me to ac-
knowledge the receipt of your colnmunica-
ton of the 25th ult, addressed to Brevet
Major General Davis Tillson, commanding
sub-district Of Georgia, giving statement OF
facts and circumstances which caused the ar
rest of certain citizens of Rome, Georgia, for
beng concerned in the display OF the flag OF
the late Southern confederacy in that city,
and asking that justice may be done and the
prisoners released.
In your letter you state no disrespect was
intended to the United States government by
the exhibition of the Confederate flag, and
that the parties who displayed it have ac-
copied in good faith the present status of af-
fairs, and do acknowledge the jurisdiction of
the United States government, &c.
If that is the case it can only be supposed,
presuming that they possess ordinary intel
ligence, that they misunderstood the present
has been decided to be huge crime. en-
bodying all the crimes of the decalogue, and
that it has been conquered and disarmed, and
that its very name and emblems are hateful
to the people of the United States; and he
must be indeed obtuse who expects, without
offence, to parade before the eyes of loyal
people that which they execrate, and their
adherence of which they have expressed in
the most emphatic language in which it is
possible for great nation to utter its senti-
ments.
1t pretended by certain newspapers that
because no order had been issued from these
headquarters that the flag of the confederacy
was not to see the light the citizens were not
warned that it would be reasonable act.
This excuse is too puerile to answer, and
unworthy ola schoolboy even. The young
men arrested, as well as other citizens of the
South. know well enough what is right and
what is wrong in such matters without wait
ing to be guided by orders especially naming
and prohibiting displays honoring treason,
and of course Conforming loyalty. Were
they so stupid as not to possess such innate
sense of propriety, the order from these head
quarters forbidding rebel glorifcation over
the remains of the rebel Brigadier General
Hanson should.have been a sufficient warn
ing that such performances would not be
tolerated.
The sole cause of this and similar offences
lies in the fact that certain citizens of Rome,
and portion OF the people of the States
lately in rebellion, do not and have not &C
cepted the situation, and that is, that the late
civil war was a rebellion, and history will so
record it. Those engaged in it are and will
be pronounced rebels; rebellion implies trea-
son, and treason is a crime, and a heinous
one, too, and deserving of punishment; and
that traitors have not been punished is Ow-
ing to the magnanimity of the conquerors-
With too many people of the South the late
civil war is called revolution, rebels are
called Confederates," loyalists to the whole
country are called damned Yankees and
traitors, and over the whole great crime, with
its accused record of slaughtered heroes,
patriots murdered because of their true
hearted love of country, widowed wives and
orphaned children, and prisoners of war slain
amid such horrors as find no parallel in the
history of the world, they are trying to throw
the gloss of responsibility, and thrusting
with contumely and derision fiom their So
ciety, the men and women who would not
their country. Everywhere in the States
lately in rebellion treason is respectable and
loyalty odious. This the people of the United
States, who ended the rebellion and saved
the country, will not permit, and all attempts
to maintain this unnatural order of things
will be met by decided disapproval
As, however, it is pretended by the friends
of the citizens arrested that they were so in
'nocent as not to know that it was wrong for
paroled prisoners and unpublished traitors to
glory in their shame and flaunt the symbol
of their crime in the face of the country, they
will be released from confinement, with the
understanding that no act of treason will be
passed unnoticed when detected, and may
they and Others who think like them profit
by the lesson they have received.
VIM. D. WHIPPLE,
Brev't Maj Gen. U. S. A. and A. A. G.