The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-04-01
A STRANGE DELUs1oN.

|
information which else might have escaped
them forever, and left them foundering IN
densest ignorance in regard to the true feeling
of the North towards the South since the war;
To our benighted vision it has appeared very
plain that the North desired to make the people
o. the South feel their defeat as cruelty as
| possible and for that reason have permitted
| carpet baggers and ignorant negroes to lord
| it over US and revel in perfect carnival OF
crime and corruption. We have seen every
principle OF civil liberty trampled under
feet in the South, in scornful disregard Of every
protest; We have witnessed sovereign States
OF the Union made the footballs Of Northern
adventures and have seen the most hide
GUS and revolving crimes not only excused,
but their perpetrators protected and preferred
above honest and patriotic men. We have
submitted to legalized robbery on scale
never before attempted in any country, civil
lied or barbarous, and have suffered the bit
ter humiliation of having our cries for mercy
answered by cruel taunts and mockings- the
words '.rebelsi" and :" traitors being flung
in our faces. We have witnessed armed
soldiers invade the Legislature of our
own State, and eject members elected
by the people at the point
Of the bayonet, and worse still, have seen that
act excused and maintained by the President
Of the nation, and virtually sanctioned by
Congress And now, having suffered what
we have suffered, having seen what We have
seen, We are complacently informed by the
New York Herald, that ''for ten years the
North has been holding out the olive branch
and for ten years it has been spurned." This
is either the sublimest effrontry or the most
uncomfortable hypocrisy. The assertion that
the South, wounded and bleeding at every
pore, robbed, insulted and left as prey
to the most graceless set of vagabonds that were
ever permitted to scourge any land under the
sun. persissently spurned the olive branch 50
| persistently extended toward her by her SYM
pathetic and much loving brothers of the
North, is about as reasonable as would be the
statement that drowning man obstinately
refused to grasp at a proffered plank. We
ought all to be intensely delighted, no doubt.
| to learn from the Herald that the best wishes
Of the Northern people have been that the
Southern people should recover as promptly
as possible from the material losses of the
war" but somehow We feel as Bessie Turner
must have felt when the irate but hypocritical
Til.on knocked her down by blow with his
| fist. and then skipping up to her gayly, said
| with we'll affected concern, "Why, Bessie
dear, you have tripped and hurt yourself" 1t
would appear, from the Tiltonic Herald, that
after all we have not been misused by the
North, but have only "tripped and hurt our
selves.
There is comfort in that reflection, and we
feel, as no doubt Bessie felt, that we have
only received blow from a friend, and that
sincere sympathy is quite equal as curative
agent to Railways Ready Relief. The marks
of the rough treatment may remain it is true,
but we shall always have the profound conso-
lation Of knowing that if we had only &C
cepted that ten-year extended olive branch
and had net foolishly tripped and hurt our
selves we should have been as happy as big
sunflower.
Here is the IieruTs article:
| Good Feeling.
| II is impossible not to smile at what we
may call the adirete OF Senator Gordon and
Representative Lamar, who have returned to
Washington, and who "speak in the most
tiattering terms OF their reception by the New
England people They have been, they
assure us, . Hospitality received by all classes
and most notably by the ex-Federal officers
who greeted them warmly everywhere" We
wish that every Southern Representative and
Senator could make similar pilgrimage. We
have never heard Of Southern man visiting
the North, no matter how conspicuous he
may have been during the rebellion, who did
not receive the highest friendship. SYM
pathy and respect. II any sentiment
reigned in the minds Of the Northern
people at the close Of the war, it was
that the victory for the Union imposed upon
them the duty Of assisting the reconstruction
of tho South. Therefore, the best wishes Of
the Northern people have been that the
Southern people should recover as promptly
as possible from the material losses Of the
war, that the old Commonwealth should be
rebuilt upon surer foundations than the
crumbling cornerstone of slavery, that Viz
GINA should be again the "Old Dominion, :"
and that Louisiana should be the imperial
Commonwealth of the Southwest. We wish
we could feel that this sentiment on the part
Of the honest men of tho North had been
reciprocated by the South. For ten years the
North has been holding out the olive branch,
and for ten years it has been spurned. When
love is combined with patience it is sure to
win in the end. So our hope has been and is
now that the South may begin to really know
the North that the issues of the war will be
buried under the green fields that now cover
the scenes of the former strife; that the bit
terness of the contest will only be remem-
bered as Englishmen REMAINDER the
wars of the Cavaliers and the Roundheads,
of the Jacobins and the Honoverians -
for the romance, chivalry. poetry OF the
times, and not as provocative Of present dis,
sension and hatred Every Southerner like
Gordon and Lamar who comes to the North
on political errand, every Southerner like
the tLousan who came here to live and to
make their homes with US is missionary o.
peace and Cancellation. Therefore we vel
come them, feeling assured that they will