The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-04-09

their most violent partIZanS and Wiling
friends. Thus resistance became impossible
and remonstrance dangerous. They enacted
laws of wholesale CONSUMPTION, and executed
them with the most searching rigor. I'M
pressment laws, so framed that the property
OF the citizen was practically at the disposal
of Irresponsible military subordinates, were
executed in such manner rs to awe or ruin
every one suspected of disaffcction or per-
sonally obnoxious TO the petty tyrants sent
out to scourge each locality. Scouting parties
composed of the most desperate and aban
doncd of the soldicry, ranged in every coun-
ty, and were changed sufficiently often to
prevent any kindly relations being formed
with the people Or any influence gained over
them by men of character and justice. The
suspension of the hnbeds cor1,"s placed under
military control the persons Of those whose
age, sex or condition exempted them from
conscription. Prisons kept in the most
loathsomc condition, were established in
Richmond and in other localities. To over
awe the struggling Union sentiment Of our
people, the one at Salisbury was set up and
made the scence of horrors, ut the recollec-
ton Of which the blood still runs cold
Hundreds Of our private citizens, exempt
from conscripton. were there, and at Castle
Thunder in Richmond, incarccrated upon
death 10y starvation and other indescribahle
cruclties.
But the falling resources of the Conteder-
acv would not allow the expense of sufficient
prison accommodation for as many victims
as was necessary to suppress the struggling
Tnionism of h-Carolina. The rest was
left TO the neighborhoed scouts and author
lied bands of guerrilla robbers, not only I'M
restrained but encouraged in laWless violence
and outrage to suspected Unonists, their
wives and children. In remote places, upon
the public highways, in the humble dwell
ings Of the poor and around the family
hearth. from which the husband and father
had been dragged i'll chains to the army and
prison, or driven to the mountain caves and
forests. scenes We're enacted that can never
be described, and, if told, would not he
credited as possible i'll Il Christian age. For
the crime OF not betraying husbands and
sons to death, the virtues and claims Of wo-
manhood were set at naught. Mothers We're
taken from helpless infants, and kept fer
weeks. in outhouses and pens in the woods,
at the mercy and disposal of depravcd and
brutal nen until, in some instances. their
brc; SIS burst with the accumulation of milk
which the merciul God of nature mad provi-
ded for their starving infants at home. In
Randolph county the thumbs of Il poor Wo-
man were put under the rails of Il fence, and
two soldiers seated themselves upon it, until,
screaming with pain, she disclosed the place
OF he husbands conccalment and consigned
him to death. And this was done in pres
encp of her two little children. This state
ment Of particular instances is made upon
the authority of public representations in
the newspapers. at the time and since, and
upon the authority of private gentlemen i'll
whose locality they occurred. And there has
been no contradiction or eXtcnuation except
that the victims were untrue to the Confed
cracy" The Polk county murders, the
" Laurel massacre the horrible murder, by
gucrIillas, Of Thaddeus Cox, and his wife
and children. in PasqUotank, and the shock
ing atrocities in Buncombe, Haywood, Ashe,
Wilkes and -illeghanv, are but isolated in
stances Of what was done in almost every
county. They can lie truthtully multiplied
by hundreds. These things were done by
authorized parties. in uniform and under Of
tcers Add to all this the want and mourn
ING that sat in every humble household, and
even then but an inadequate conception Can
be formed of the terrible condition to which
we were reduced.
Rem0nstrances were sent to the State and
Confederate authorities and representations
of many of these facts ought to be, and prob
ably are on file in the Executive office at
Raleigh. We have not heard that any of
the perpetrators have been brought to trial
or punishment. But on the contrary. the
present Legislature Of the State has been
swift to pass an act of general amnesty and
pardon in order to screen them from all fu-
ture investigation 1t would have been far
more proper and more conducive to the fu-
turc peace and welfare Of the country, had
the Legislature instituted in each county
commission to take afidavits respecting the
occurrences in it, to be published in a vol
umc and preserved among the public arch
ives, as perpetual warning to pOsterity.-
Such a record would certainly serve as q
guide to future Legislatures in making just
determinations in such acts of amnesty as
good policy may from time to time require.
The untimely haste of legislators to draw
curtain over it ALL leaves room for suspicion
that the purpose was not only to secure the
guilty from punishment but more especially
to save the instigatOrs and leaders of the re-
bellion from the disgrace to which the truth
might expose them before the tribunal of
mankind
These things are brought to mind, not for
purposes of crimination, but to be used in
discussing our present condition, and the
motives that now actuate the conduct of
some men among us.
The open and deliberate preparation for
the rebellion was clearly treason, and would
have been checked by punishment as such
in any other form Of government than that
of the United States, before it eliminated in
q bloody and destructive war. In a mon
archy, absolute or limited, where oppression
becomes intolerable, treason leading to revo-
luton is extenuated and even justified, con
Quoted with humanity and justice for the
purpose Of securing liberty and right For,
in such forms Of government, revolution is
generally the only resort against oppression
and tyranny. But in free republic, the bal
lot-box, a written constitution, and the courts
of law are safeguards rendering the neces-
sity for revolution next to impossible Even
should wrong and oppression exist, until
these peaceful remedies have been exhausted !
treason in a repubici is the highest of crimes
1t can be nothing less than the plotting of |
wicked and ambitious men against the lber-
ties of the people and the peace and welfare
of their country.
But, during the initiatory proceedings |
leading to the late rebellion. it seemed to be
supposed that the spirit and theory of repub-
lican government forbade interference with |
the free action of citizens until it assumed