THE ATTITUDE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES.

Press, Volume VIII, Issue 929, 30 October 1865, Page 3

THE ATTITUDE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES.

r*- I^-, " • [From the " Exatnirfer."] '• (Ebe true attitude aud purpose of not. be revealed uutil. the LV meeting of-Congress in December, but the apparent contradictions aceoonte arise appar- |<> from fchia. Tiro conditione

of peace were offered to tbe South, if not in words, at least in fact,—obedience and emancipation,—and the South, though abandoning the war, has accepted only one. It obeys the Federal Government, but resists", where it can, interference with the negroes, and, to make resistance effectual, pushes to the utmost the American theory of municipal right. Throughout the revolted States we see no sign and hear no report of anything approaching to insurrection, or plots for insurrection against the Federal authority. "Returned soldiers of the Confederate army sometimes use their bayonets, but it is against private enemies of the victorious garrison, not against the Central Government ; villages sometimes defy the law, but it is for • the sake of persecuting the negro, not of resisting a definite military order. Indeed, by all accounts, which upon this point are unanimous, the possibility of overt resistance has disappeared. The South is as exhausted as Poland, —her railways destroyed, her accumulations expended, and her population fit to bear arms, reduced to one-half. She has not even the means of producing a crop, for tbe negroes have been set free, and the whites are entirely unaccustomed to manual, or, indeed, any other kind of labour. Even if they will work under the pressure of necessity, they will have to !be trained before their work can be effective. Insurrection under such circumstances is out of the question, and is admitted to be so by the most violent partisans, but resistance short of insurrection is not, and this the people have already commenced. Mr. Johnson, a southerner by training, has decided finally that reconstruction shall be accomplished through State action, and the States are, therefore, at liberty to choose for their conventions, and for ihunicipal officers, all persons who have been pardoned and who have taken the oath of allegiance. These pardons are given liberally, 3,200 having been issued in Virginia, and the population generally takes the oath with more or less of readiness. The consequence is that strong " Southern " men are chosen for delegates &id for municipal officers, men who will if they can refuse emancipation, and if they cannot will offer all resistance to the policy of the North possible without war, who for example will try to levy special taxes on incomes derived from Federal bonds, authorise the formation of national guards, who may one day be used for another revolt, steadily oppose the immigration of Yankee settlers, and place the negro under all kinds of legal disabilities. So fas has resistance been carried that the generals are now the only trustworthy agents of tbe national Government, and take upon themselves every now and then to annul the elections as at Eichmond, eieze presses as in North Carolina, and condemn " loafing" whites to sweep the streets as in one of the towns in Texas. Indeed, it is not improbable that in Alabama public feeling will go the length of refusing to insert a clause abolishing slavery in the-Constitution, and if it does the real test of the possibility of reconstruction under this policy will be at hand.

It is by no means certain that were the negro absent the President might not succeed in tbe policy he has adopted. The State system of the ; Union, with all its disadvantages, has this one recommendation, that it enables the inhabitants of any one State to organise a society not necessarily identical with that of the whole body. Under present circumstances, the State power shields the subjugated community from feeling its eubjugation. They will still manage their own affairs, make their own laws, organise their own army without orders from Washington, and without indeed seeing any officials from Washington, except the collectors of the national taxes. Irritation, under such circumstances, would be sure to die away, as it dies away in a man who has had a fierce quarrel, but who never comes across the man with whom he has quarrelled. An opportunity would be afforded for a revival of imperial feeling, and a foreign war once more render both section conscious of their common interests and mutual dependence on each other. But there is the negro, everywhere present, everywhere free, everywhere reminding each individual Southernor that he is a conquered man. Upon this point Mr. Johnson, and indeed the North generally, will hear of no compromise ; and the Government has taken the extreme step—extreme, we mean, in view of the American idea of State rights—of placing all negroes under the sole authority of the freedmen's bureaus, and authorising the military to interfere for their protection. The military, however, cannot be everywhere; the slaves by themselves do not defend themselves; and the irritability of men who see in freedom a loss of property as well as an injury to their pride vents itself upon the unTiaippy race. The incessant outrages upon blacks lead to incessant conflicts with the garrisons, and thus keep up a state of affairs which looks almost like civil war, but is really only anarchy kept down by military power. Under the Constitution, the President alone baa the right of moving Union troops, and the Southerners cannot legally object to the presence of these garrisons; but they must in the end be withdrawn, and then the South, left to itself, will endeavor to devise State lawd which shall re-establish slavery under some more complicated, but we fear, not less oppressive system, and will strengthen those laws by the action of vigilance committees. This is what Mr. Johnson desires to prevent, and this is the point at which his policy of reconstruction by States clashes with his other policy of emancipation. He ,may be able to induce Congress to pass laws making the freemen's bureaus permanent institutions; but they will be valueless without soldiers to euforoo tfseir orders, tor the South, with its great weight in Congress, will speedily be able to secure the nomination of their own friends to the office of protectors. If he is not able;to pass such laws the negroes must either fly Northward, &

' movement which will be cheeked by J inter-state passport laws, or resist, ! thus at last fulfilling the remarkable i prophecy of De Tocqueville : —'• lam J obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two race.s in the United States. The negroes! may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, tiiev will soon revolt at being deprived of all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily declare themselves as enemies." The extraordinary aptitude of the American people for stumbling through difficulties apparently insuperable into some practicable road, may enable them to devise some alternative course, but until the negro question is settled there can be neither peace in the South nor cordiality towards the Union ; and, so far as outside observers can perceive, the negro question is, under the State system, still insoluble.