The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1868-10-14
The Poor Down-trodden south.

These words are in the mouth of every
rebel stumper, and are the burden Of every
rebel sheet.
Why is the South poor9 1t is poor be-
cause the rich secessionists, who were the
principal property holders, ruined them
selves by rebellion. They staked all upon
single card, and expecting to win all, they
lost ALL
The South is poor, because it lacks capital
to develop its resources. Capital does not
come because of the senseless ostracism of
Northern men and women. Enterprise Ian
glishes because too many of our people will
not see the new relations which the former
slaves now bear to their old masters. To such
an extent has this prejudice, and not unfre-
quently the defrauding the colored man of
his wages for labor been carried, that there
are thousands who prefer not to work at all
rather than to work for nothing.
As to the down-trodden South, we have
only to state that no country in the world
has ever been ''trodden" less rudely Is it
oppression that few thousand Federal sol
diers are stationed in the South to maintain
the laws and enforce order? Was it oppres-
sion that the Freedman's Bureau distributed
hundreds of thousands of rations to white
people who have been reduced to beggary
by the rebellion? Where, then, is the OPP
preston? So far as we can see, it exists on
ly in this that the rebels are not received
in Congress with open arms and permitted
to gain, with the aid of their Northern al
lies, what they failed to accomplish by force
ofarms
Because few prominent rebels have not
been restored to political rights, while An
drew johnson pardoned everybody, rebels
cry out against the government as worse
despotism than Russia And all this, not
withstanding the fact that these same rebels
have put back the material development of
the country for fifty years, have nearly ruined
our commercial marine, have ridged the land
with graves and piled up a colossal public
debt of more than two billion of dollars in
their diabolical attempt to destroy the best
and the purest government the world ever
saw, and to strengthen and perpetuate an
infamous institution.
This rebel howl about oppression is the
same clamor'that the traitors of 1860 raised
to fire the Southern heart and to precipitate
| revolution.
The language of Alexander H. Stephens
in the Georgia Secession Convention is no
less true to-day than it was then:
"Upon what rights has the North encroached?
What interest has it impaired? What justice has
| been refused us? What claim founded in right
and justice has been denied US? Can single
| person present point to any act of the govern
| ment at Washington which gives the South any
| good ground for complaint! demand an an
| swer On the other hand, let me state few
facts for proof of which refer to the history
OF the country.
''When the South demanded the slave trade
was it not extended fora term of twenty years?
When we demanded representation for three
fifths of our slaves in Congress it not allow
| ed? When we asked for the fugitive slave law
did we not getit in addition to the guarantee al
ready existing in the Constitution?
| eff you will destroy such a government, here
| by declare to you that it is a folly and crime
viii Ii l shall never sanction"
Thus spoke Stephens then, and so would
he speak to-day, were he not so deeply COM
promised as Vice-President in the rebellion
that it will be impossible for him ever to
rise to the patriotic and statesman-like posi-
tion he once occupied.