THE CONDITION OF THE SOUTH

Otago Witness, Issue 715, 12 August 1865, Page 9

THE CONDITION OF THE SOUTH

The Alta California, of the 20th May,

says : —

All the rebel armies east of the Mississippi have surrendered. Jeff. Davis, the head of the rebellion, is in the hands of the Government. R. M. T. Hunter, the President of the late rebel Senate, has also been arrested. Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President, is still at large. It may be concluded, however, that, if there be reason to apprehend any trouble from him, he will not long be outside of the walls of Fort Lafayette. Brown, the rebel Governor of Georgia, is on his way to Washington under guard, and so is Vance, whilom Executive of the State of North Carolina. Kilpatrick's troopers are in pursuit of Magrath, the rebel Governor of South Carolina, and we may look forward with certainty not only to his capture, before long, but of Isham Harris, ot Tennessee ; Tom Reynolds, ex-Lieutenant-Governor of Missouri, but claiming to be Governor, in consequence of the death of Claiborne Jackson ; Moore, of Louisiana ; Murrah, of Texas, and all the other rebel Governors. There is now no organised rebel army any where east of the Mississippi, and not even the shadow of a rebel Government anywhere. Kirby Smith, Price, Magruder and a few others alone at last dates were holding out, but it is exceedingly probable that when they hear of the surrender of Johnson and Dick Taylor, and the capture of Jeff. Davis, they will make haste to secure for themselves the benefits of the exceedingly liberal terms granted by the President to rebels in arms. It may be safely assumed, therefore, that the South will not suffer much more from regular and organised warfare. There will be no more marching of mighty hosts, no more pitched battles, no more sieges, no more devastation ; but it will take years yet to repair the breaches in the structure of society which the waT occasioned. We now hear on all sides of the marauding of discharged rebel soldiers. These men have lost all habits of industry. They will take to the highway, and continue in their evil courses till justice finally overtakes them. The masses of the people too, as far as our information extends, have not yet realised their exact condition. There appears to be an idea prevalent- among them that there is a chance for slavery yet, in the shape of gradual emancipation. Kentucky, it is a matter of regret, seems bent on a course calculated to strengthen that delusion. Kentucky is the only State, with the exception of Delaware, in which slavery at this moment , exists by law. According to the despatches of yesterday, the Legislature of ,that State is now in session, and one of its first acts is to appoint a committee to revise, the alavt? code., , Kentucky isi contriving another series of evils for her Southern sisters. If her statesmen should come forward . and abolish slavery at once, antf ,iij. a, farpqal, manner, that would do much tq.iurn tfie Southern mind into that , channel „' of thought in which, sooner or later, by "the^ineyitabjejtendency of events, it is bound jjb run. If the Southern , people should meet their late slaves half way and offer them fair wages

ari<rsmali~portionß of theif superabundant lands, a higher degree of prosperity than they ever before reached is within their grasp. All the labor which they r,equire for the cultivation of their', plantations is attainable at fair wages, without the incumbrance of the old-and young. If they had frankly accepted the " situation " in which they now find then'selres, we are satisfied that troubles such 88 those recently reported in south-western Virginia would never have occurred, and that the planters of' North Carolina ' would never have beet) driven to the necessity of travelling North in search of laborers to till their lands. Kentucky is holding out false^ lights to her Southern sisters, and will, if she does net alter her course, lead them into worse quagmires than they have yet floundered through ; for this institution of slavery is dead — very dead — and can never be resurrected by human agency. The twenty-eight votes required for the amendment to the constitution of the United States abolishing slavery, proposed by last Congress, will be obtained of a surety, during the course of ! the present year, and then Kentucky will be forced to surrender the institution to which she is now so blindly clinging, to her own great detriment and to the ruin of the whole South.