The Portland daily press., 1868-04-14

Sergeant Bates arrived at Richmond on
Wednesday from Vicksbu1g, whence he
started several months ago. His pedestrian
trip has precisely the same political sisnifi-
canoe as that of Edward Payson Weston,
from Portland to Chicago. From Cleveland
Weston's shoe was sens to Portland by mail,
bearing thereon an elaborate inscription, in
commemoration of his heroic tramp from
the sea to the lakes. The enthusiasm over
Bates's flag was just as fictitious and unmean-
ing as that of the Clevelanders over Weston's
shoe. y I'-Ali-'
1t would indeed be matter for congratu-
lation if 1t were otherwise. The Democratic
papers speak of the humbug sergeant's pro-
gress as being in its nature calculated to irri-
tate and annoy the Union party-as If a
demonstration of the existence of a genuine
patriotic feeling among the whites of the
unreconstructed States would be dista.eiul
to the men to whose efforts even the SEM
blance of a Union is due. But If there
were any sincerity in Southern alteration OF
the flag and the government and laws OF
which it is the symbol, the Radicals are the
men who before all others would find occa-
sion to rejoice. 1t would indicate the speed
lest and most thorough moral and political
regeneration through their instrumentality
that man ever accomplished. 1t would be a
wonderful fourteen years work for the Re-
publican party, if, in addition to checking
The spread of slavery, then abolishing it. ex-
tending impartial suffrage to all parts OF the
national domain and civil rights to all parts
of the country, and saving the government
from violent disruption, it had also trans
formed several millions of enemies of the
Republic into ardent friends.
But this whole Bates plot is too shallow to de-
cieye a novice iu politics. Have the Southern
people shown on previous occasions that they
are incapable of gross fraud and deception
when they have the attainment of some po-
litical purpose in view? How loud they were
in their professions Of submission to the pow
er that had crushed their armies, every
one remembers. Yet they Immediately
thereafter rejected with perfect unanimity a
generons proposition for admission to Con-
gress, because it was accompanied by an easy
cODQlulOn Wup>u COulh nav DSSAA "ssA'~A oAA'J
by ignoring the dictates of justice. Their
professions of loyalty were followed, too, by
the prescription and persecution of Union
men, black and white, throughout their
whole territory. The great army of Union
martyrs has received regular reinforcements
since the spring of 1865. Some of the States
| like Texas, furnish an annual contingent,
of some hundreds of men, sent out of the
world by the yet unsheathed rebel steel, to
ioin their comrades who persisted in the field.
| What is the march of renegade soldier,
with preconcerted ceremonies aud enthusi-
asm manufactured to order by the side OF
these factsP The men who received Bates at
Montgomery with so much cordiality are
tbey who few years since evinced their
integrity and patriotism by swearing TO
support the Constitution Of the United States
and while the oath was still but newly utter
ed, moving heaven and earth to destroy it.
Those who made obeisance to the flag in 9th
er towns were their associates in treason.
It would be inexpressibly pleasant to be.
lieye what we are expected to in relation tc
this matter, but its whole purpose is as cleal