What will they do with us?
We fully concur with a contemporary that neither experience of the conduct of other nations where revolutions had occurred, nor our knowledge of the public enemy while we were in political association with him, nor since the rupture, afford any reason to expect that the consequences of our failure would be less disastrous nor deplorable to individuals, to property and to society, than have been the consequences of defeat, without exception, to vanquished peoples. No more than Ireland, India, Hungary or Poland, may we hope for another fate than political subjection, with all the accompaniments of humiliation and wretchedness — the fate of subjugated national ties.We go even further than this. We believe that the dispositions of England to Ireland and India, of Austria to Hungary, and of Russia to Poland, are benevolent and merciful compared to those of the Yankee Government to the Southern States. In none of these examples were so many base and cruel appetites enlisted as in this contest. It is not alone the lust of power, the greed of gain, and the madness of fanaticism — added to all these are the devilish passions of envy and revenge, the infernal spirit of the French Revolution, combined with the ambition of the Czar and the fanaticism of Cromwell.
Neither Hungary, Poland, India, no Ireland, have ever suffered as this people will be made to suffer when the foot of the Yankee tyrant is on the necks of the--"first families. " That will be the sweetest draught — the conqueror will quaff in all that mingled goblet of blood and subjugation. The utter degradation of those whom they represent as the aristocrats will be milk and honey to their souls. It matters not that in no land under Heaven is there as much real republicanism as in the Confederate States. Our enemies are enraged by that decree of Providence which has assigned to the Southern people such a goodly heritage; they feel the malign influences which steal over ignoble natures when they come in contact with superior manhood. What will they do with us, indeed? What did Robespierre, St. Just and other demons of the Reign of Terror do? Even were they disposed to be tolerant and merciful, the necessities of their position would present difficulties which it would be impossible to surmount. Our own debt, State and Confederate, would be wholly repudiated. The enormous debt of the United States, three thousand millions of dollars,--owed by the Northern people — owed to them — whose pockets will that come out of? A contemporary, the Confederate, supposes this case: Two candidates in Yankee States present themselves for popular suffrages for a seat in the Federal Congress. One puts to the other this question: We have a debt of three thousand millions, and several millions are held by our constituents — how do you propose to pay it?
Well, says the other, the Southern people are our brethren — we are not of the same race and blood; it is true they have done very wrong, have committed grievous sins, but they have been sadly punished, and their sufferings are many and great. We can afford to be humane, and generous, and forgiving; our nation is great and prosperous; the debt will never be felt as a burden; I am for paying it as an ordinary public debt, by provisions made through Congress, bearing uniformly on the people of the whole Union, North and South. To which the questioner would reply: I care nothing for race or blood; these Southern people were rebels, and they failed, and they have been admitted back into the Union; they caused the war; they shed the blood of Northern people; they produced the debt — it is little enough to make them pay it to the last farthing.--Which of these men would sit in the Yankee Congress.
So of pensions and bounties. When the war ends they will have the maimed and crippled soldiers on their hands, and the widows and orphans of those who died in their service — and they will be many, for their slaughter has been great, and their wounded and disabled immense. Any one familiar with the history of pensions after the American Revolution knows that the Yankees appeared on the pension rolls of the Republic in numbers out of all proportion to their numbers on the field of battle. In the present war the Yankees profess to have brought out, from first to last, three millions of men. We do not believe that that number has existed anywhere except on the muster rolls; but if any one doubts that it would be fully represented on the pension lists, he must be an indifferent reader of history.--These will have to be provided for by pensions and bounties. "But out of whose property," asks the Confederate, "are those pensions and bounties to be supplied? Never will the Yankee nation agree to fasten any portion of such a burden on themselves while we have shoulders on which they can put it.--There would be the same two candidates for Congress — the same pro and con--and the same result.
"But where are these bounty lands to be located? There are millions of acres of Northwestern lands, but they are wild forests and uncultivated prairies.--In the South, are farms still undesolated — rich, fertile lands, improved by cultivation, stocked with implements of husbandry,--with cattle and beasts of burden, with dwellings and necessary out-houses,--which lands have already been promised, and which are as coveted as they are desirable; and those who want them are they who will cast the votes that will elect the men who are to say whether or no they are to be given.--Can there be any doubt that the soldiers of our enemies will be quartered in their bounty lands on the plantations of our citizens?
"Besides, these lands grow the great staples, and the staple of cotton primarily. It will be a political necessity with our enemies to place the cultivation of cotton in the keeping of themselves, and out of the hands of those who have been rebels. But while the Yankee soldiers are thus pensioned and supplied with his bounty land, what is to become of our own heroic soldiers? The few, but undismayed — the braves of Lee's noble army — the self-sacrificing, enduring veterans, who have planted so often the battle-flag of the Confederacy on the enemy's ramparts, amid the shouts of victory — of those whose limbs have been torn asunder, the blind and crippled, who cannot earn a support, and the wives and little ones, who have fallen in the war? Why, in the day that our banners are lowered — in the day that our Confederacy is lost — the doom of our soldiers will be written. They will be turned adritt. No homage will be paid to their sufferings; no support in their afflictions and want! Orphans of a dead nation, without an asylum or a friend!"
"What will they do with us" in the event of subjugation? Nothing in all the clouded future is as manifest and palpable as the answer to that question. Every man in the Confederacy who expects to have a home upon the earth must fight for it, or, if he cannot fight, help by his industry and self-denial to feed those who are fighting.
