Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1867-01-03

into eternity.
With the Southern people, if the results
of the past year were not so eventful as
those of 1856, which recorded changes III
their ,lestinies and laws more radical than
the work of centuries ordinarily marks in
the history of a nation, it has been equally
dark and unpromising. Then we had Just
emerged from long, bloody and exhaustive
civil strife, our cities burned, our fields de-
spoiled, our homesteads dismantled, our
people impoverished, yet rich in the valor
of their sons and the virtues of their daugh-
tiers, determined to perform faithfully and
honestly the sacred promises we had given
and acquiesce frankly and manly in the re-
suits of the unsuccessful struggle for sep
arate and Independent national existence
At that time we could only give secu-
rity for our good conduct as citizens, the
character we had won as honorable foes
character for gallantry and valor that
brought from the great Commander, to
whose weIl-appointed hosts the ragged
and half-starved veterans, the honorable
remnants of Lees great army, surrendered,
the confession, which does credit to his
heart, that ''they were men, whose man
hood, however mistaken the cause, per-
formed Herculean deeds of valor." These
we did pledge and entered upon the duties
stern necessity imposed upon us with many
hopes and with some misgivings.
During the past year we have performed
truly and ccnscientiously all the duties in
Cured as citizens of the United States, and
submitted with quiet and digniied COM
posure to every honorable demand made
upon us. Our act of secession, around
which clustered most of the theories and
much of the realities of State sovereignty
our slaves, embracing material part Ofithe
remaining property of our exhausted peo-
ple-our war debt, in which was invested
in very many instances every farthing of
widows and orphans whose husbands and
fathers, "without name and without
stone," fill shallow graves upon every bat
tle-field which has rendered immortal the
short-ived Confederacy been freely
offered upon the National altar in atone
ment for defeat. Without dishonoring the
memories of our noble dead or making in
famous our heroic living, with no pretend
ed rejoicings over the defeat of the ''lost
cause and with no hollow paans in honor
of the victors, we have made good to the
very letter every pledge we have given and
performed every duty which good govern
ment may demand of its citizens We have,
therefore, added to our heroic bearing as
enemies, honorable conduct as citizens,
and had right to expect, if not to demand,
equal honesty and good faith upon the part
of the Government.
With such feelings and hopes, the South
ern people began the labors of the past
year, and We're determined, even in the
face of the troubles then beginning to dar-
ken the political horizon, with stout hearts,
to repair the ravages of war, by honest toll
and determined energy, and to restore the
kindly feelings between the sections by
honorable bearing and conscientious OBJ
servance of the laws. This they have done,
although the rapid and radical strides of
party have left them almost without the
consolation of hope for an early or equi-
table adjustment of the political troubles
and the restoration of the Union. In spite
of the pernicious effects of Radicalism upon
the energies of the people-in the face of
the ominous forebodings of Congress in re-
gard to our political future-notwithstan
ing our utter prostration and poverty-al-
most without sympathy and entirely with
out aid, the Southern people began with
marvellous energy the work of rebuilding
their burnt cities, identifying their disman-
tied homesteads, and restoring their devas-
tated fields. And to-day throughout the
South the hum of industry is heard, and
the very battle fields have yielded to honest
toll the profits of seasons harvest.
To-day We commence the second year
since the cessation of hostilities with de-
examinations as strong, but with hopes much
weaker than twelvemonth since we began
the year just drawn to close. To the
gloomy, sad and terrible lessons, the suf
ferings, the memories and the defeat Of
1865, we have now to add the political
trials, the spirit of overbearing and reck
less fanaticism, the direful determination
of conscious strength to humiliate honora.
BILE helplessness, which have made the pass
year about as miserable as its predecessor
But we are determined neither to sit in
helpless dependency amid the ruin of for.
tunes and the graves of loved and honored
friends, nor to lose heart because of trou
bles and complications that seem about tc
sweep away the last yestige of political
rights left from the fearful wreck Still
hopeful. selfreliant, our people are deter
mined by well-directed labors during the
present year to restore plenty and comfort
to many a. needy household. Eschewine
party politics for the more important mat
tiers of material prosperity, they will await
their fate with quiet dignity and manly
frmness, and if partizan blindness and Sec
tional hate prove the tomb of national lib
erty, the epitaph which records the fact will