“We who are here have a much better opportunity of knowing the feeling of the people than you at a distance, for they will not speak as freely before you as they will before us here and among themselves. The feeling of disloyalty is as strong here now as it was during the war, but they cannot show it as they did then; and with regard to the freedmen there is every disposition on their part to make them odious. They constantly talk of insurrection, insubordination, thieving, idleness, and every species of crime and vice; all of which I assure you is entirely false. They are perfectly subordinate to every law, and, so far as thieving is concerned, such an assertion is gratuitous or false; for all cases of thieving, certainly, I am sorry to say, are done by the whites.”
I also read from another private letter:—
“The clash of arms has subsided, the serried hosts of Rebels have been disbanded, and the huge paraphernalia of war have been scattered; but, notwithstanding these facts, the low mutterings of sullen discontent are yet heard, and the desire to persecute and break down all truly loyal men is exhibited on every hand with even more sly ferocity than while the war of sections raged.
“We are residents of this city, each engaged in public business, and consequently thrown into contact with all classes of citizens. Hourly we hear denunciations of the Government, and prayers for the removal of the military. And why these denunciations and these prayers, if the oath of allegiance had been honestly taken, to be sacredly observed? No, Gentlemen, the spirit of rebellion is not dead, and will never die while Democratic leaders in the South are relieved of their treachery and turned loose to stir up sedition and to incite rebellion. The men make loud professions of loyalty, and their press reverberates the echo from hill and valley; but you have only to read their fanfaronades on loyalty to satisfy yourselves of the bitter hatred that fills their breasts against the Union, and the burning hate with which they will proceed to pour out the vials of their wrath upon all Union men, when once they can secure seats in Congress and get possession of the reins of State government. In their hearts they cling as ardently to State sovereignty as ever, and once give them the power and they will tax the loyal people to the full value of the slave property destroyed by the war. Mark this prediction.”
Another private letter, from a person so situated as to be singularly well informed, thus foreshadows a system of Peonage:—
“The necessity of the courts is beyond all question. Even with these courts it requires watchfulness to protect the blacks. If they were left without these courts, the whites would keep them forever in bondage, by keeping them in debt; and I am afraid that the legislation of the States will be to the effect to establish here the Mexican system of Peonage, by using some very extraordinary terms to coerce ‘hatched-up’ accounts against the blacks.”
To this I might add indefinitely, exhibiting the bad temper and disloyal spirit which prevail throughout Virginia. Bayonets are no longer flashing there; bullets are no longer whizzing there; but the traitorous soul that inspired the Rebellion still fills the State with its malignant breath. Give it not, I entreat you, the power to rule.
From Virginia pass to North Carolina. Here the testimony is the same. During this week I have seen Government officers who have been in service, one since 1863, who report that it is not safe to speak one’s sentiments there; that liberty of speech does not exist; that the freedmen, so far from being lazy or remiss, are willing to work, but that they are exposed to unutterable hardship and cruelty. On these points the testimony is explicit. A loyal resident of North Carolina writes me:—
“I tell you, Sir, the only difference now and one year ago is, that the flag is acknowledged as supreme, and there is some fear manifested, and they have no arms. The sentiment is the same. If anything otherwise, more hatred exists toward the Government. I know there is more toward Union men, both black and white.”