Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1883-05-16
Northerners at the south.

FdTmer klndly bends us copy OIL an excel
lent southern agricultural monthly, the
Planters Journal, issued at Vicksburgh,
Miss. II is such a publication as would be
credit to any locality,-thoroughly well
edited, beautifully printed, and animated
by spirit of kindness and justice toward
all sections Of the country. We frequently
have the pleasure Of reading the newspapers
of Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and
Virginia, and he must be excessively hard
to please who finds anything to complain of
in any of them as regards sectional good
feeling. There is not as much i'll will ex.
pressed as is seen, often, between New York
and New England, or even between the ed
itors of adjoining states at the north.
We suppose Mr.. Cheever sends us this
paper by way of an answer to our article
advising Vermonters not to go south in
search Of pleasant homes upon the farms of
that section. That advice, however, was
not based upon anything in the tone Of re-
spectacle newspapers towards northern i'm.
migration. That is everything that could
be desired, as is also the expressed feeling
of large portion of southern society. But
as in one of our New England farming
neighborhoods two or three worthless, dis.
honest families will make it uncomfortable
for thousand respectable people, so in the
south the lack of any fellow-feeling upon
the part of ninetenths of the people, and
the active hostility Of half-sdozen unreoon.
structed, irreconciable secesh, will make
any Yankee family, and especially the fe-
male members of it, home-sick to DEATH"
They will find nothing of the active
goodwill that meets them everywhere in
the west,-that open-hsnded, warn hearted
"can't do-enough for you," that will meet
respectable settlers in any northern town,
no matter where they came from. The at
titude of southern society toward northern.
ers is altogether different from that. There
are plenty of good people there,-just as
good people as can be found anywhere on
earth. But even these good people, although
they are glad to welcome northern capital,
shave no particular use for Yankees them
selves" They will not be unkind to north
ern settlers, but they will not be cordial, and
the prevailing sentiment would not severely
frown upon the worser element in its efforts
to annoy northern neighbors. In fact q
southerner who showed active friendship and
sympathy for northern neighbors would be
in danger of losing caste with his own class
by doing So And the women of the south
are particularly averse 10 any intimacy with
Yankee neighbors. The bitterness felt by
northern women toward jeff. Davis and
other southern leaders, after their loved
ones began to fall upon the battle field, is
felt at this day by southern women towards
every northern man and woman. Besides
that, there is the sristocratic feeling of
shareholders towards anybody, and espe-
cially toward women, who work as northern
farmers wives and daughters work in their
domestic avocations upon the farm.
There is no. guess.work about this, with
us. We went into the south expecting TO
make our home there for life, in .lS49, and
AOhuAhoo ehCAo uhtl lOOls N0 CdSb OuT
first vote in the south, was always Jeffer-
sonian democrat, and are so to-day. We
graduated in our profession in southern
University, and lived there in peace and
prosperity until after Lincoln's election
We have nothing but good to say of the
southerners as a people. We like them.
When, in 1866, we first thought of coming
to Vermont to live, an old Vermonter said
to us, in Boston," If you are republican
and Congregationalist you will find Ver-
mont good state to live in; but if not, you
might as well be in the internal regions
without claws" This was the bitter iudg-
ment of a man who for some reason was,
like Stephen A. Douglas, not much in love
with his native state. No doubt outspoken
copperhesd democrats did have a hard time
in Vermont during the war, and being an
infidel would not help the matter in ortho-
dox neighborhoods. But the very worst
feeling of that kind that ever existed here
in the highest times of excitement was no
worse, if as bad, as the feeling generally
entertained in southern society to-day toward
New England people. Democrat and Swe-
denborgian as we are, we have lived
happily and peacefully among the Green
Mountains, for nine years the agricultural
editor Of republican, and also of Congre-
gational newspaper, without abating one
iota of our principles, political or religious.
Socially, we never could see that we were
any the worse off on account. OF them. If
the like could truly be said of the south,
we would as earnestly adviss as we now
earnestly deprecate Yankee emigration to
what we should regard as, everything con
sidered, the best part of North America
were it not that southernerS feel towards
Yankees good deal as the Irish feel toward
the English. "'Tis true tits pity, aud pity
tbs, tbs true"