The Ebensburg Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1865-1871, 1868-09-10

nc IuIl import or SFen. HoSecTans MS
sion to White Sulphur Springs, Virginia,
| is out at last. He had now better turn
his attention to Mexico. We take for
granted that he is on pay for his mission
to that distracted country, and whatever
services he has to render her may be rem
dered most efficiently by turning his face
toward the land of the Aztecs, rather than
toward White Sulphur Springs We hope
he will have better fortune in the mission
for which he is receiving Government pay
than in the one he has performed without
pay
1t is but few days since the gallant
General declared that he had undertaken
this labor on his own responsibility, but in
his letter to Gen. Lee, he speaks in the
name of the Union army and the people
Of the North and West.
But the pith of Gen. Rosecrans' letter
is contained in the following:
~ want TO know if you, and the gentlemen
who will join in that written expression, are
willing to pledge the people of the South to
chivalrous and magnanimous devotion to
restoring peace and prosperity to our common
country. l want to carry that pledge high
above the level of party politics, to the late
officers and soldiers of the Union army and
the people of the North and West and to ask
them to consider it, and to take the necessa-
ry action, confident that it will meet with a
response so warm, so generous and confdinc
that we SHALL see in its sunshine the rainbow
of peace in our political sky, now black with
clouds and impending storms.n
The pith of the answer Of Gen. Lee and
those that unite with him in answering
Gen. Rosecrans is as follows:
"Whatever opinions may have prevailed in
the past in regard to African slavery, or the
right of State to secede from the Union, we
believe we express the almost unanimous
Judgment of the Southern people when we
declare that they consider that those ques-
tlons were decided by the war, and that it is
their intention in good faith to abide by that
decision. AT the close of the war the South
ern people laid down their arms and sought
to resume their former relations with the
United States Government. The
idea that the Southern people are hostile to
the negroes, and would Cypress them if it
were in their power to do so, is entirely un-
founded. They have grown up in their midst,
and we have been accustomed from chil6h ood
to look upon them with kindness. The
change in the relations of the two races has
wrought no change in our feelings toward
them. They still constitute the important
part of our laboring population. Without
their labor the lands of the South would be
comparatively unproductive. Without the
employment which Southern agriculture af-
fords, they would be destitute of the means
of subsistence, and become paupers, depen-
dent on the public bounty"
Just what constitutes 'Fchivalrous and
magnanimous devotion to restoring peace
and prosperity is not much clearer than
mud, nor does Gen. Rosecrans or Gen. Lee
aid our vision. The latter, with his
friends, says they accept two facts as set
| tied by the war--the extinction of slavery
and the right of secession That must
have been a sumner for cold Rosey'-
Only those two facts settled by the war !
Says Gen. Lee, ''the Southern people are
not hostile to the negroes and would not
oppress them. The change in the rela-
tions Of the two races has wrought no
change of feeling toward them" Exactly
SO, and that is just what is the matter.
The Southern blacks are ignorant but no
more ignorant than the landlcss Southern
whites. What both poor whites and the
blacks want is not kindness so much as
justice, not favors so much as their legal
and natural rights and voice in making
the laws by which they are to be governed.
These, Gen. Lee and his friends are not
| willing to grant, and hence the trouble