Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 1.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[34] the slaves of our slaves, hewers of wood and drawers of water for those upon whom God has stamped indelibly the marks of physical and intellectual inferiority. The past, or foreign countries, need not be sought unto to furnish illustrations of the heritage of shame that subjugation would entail. Baltimore, St. Louis, Nashville, Knoxville, New Orleans, Vicksburg, Huntsville, Norfolk, Newbern, Louisville and Fredericksburg, are the first fruits of the ignominy and poverty of Yankee domination.

The sad story of the wrongs and indignities endured by those States which have been in the complete or partial possession of the enemy, will give the best evidence of the consequences of subjugation. Missouri, a magnificent empire of agricultural and mineral wealth, is to-day a smoking ruin and the theatre of the most revolting cruelties and barbarities. The minions of tyranny consume her substance, plunder her citizens, and destroy her peace. The sacred rights of freemen are struck down, and the blood of her children, her maidens, and her old men, is made to flow, out of mere wantonness and recklessness. No whispers of freedom go unpunished, and the very instincts of self-preservation are outlawed. The worship of God and the rites of sepulture have been shamefully interrupted, and, in many instances, the cultivation of the soil is prohibited to her own citizens. These facts are attested by many witnesses, and it is but a just tribute to that noble and chivalrous people, that, amid barbarities almost unparalleled, they still maintain a proud and defiant spirit towards their enemies.

In Maryland, the judiciary, made subservient to executive absolutism, furnishes no security for individual rights or personal freedom; members of the legislature are arrested and imprisoned without process of law or assignment of cause, and the whole land groaneth under the oppressions of a merciless tyranny.

In Kentucky, the ballot-box has been overthrown, free speech is suppressed, the most vexatious annoyances harass and embitter, and all the arts and appliances of an unscrupulous despotism are freely used to prevent the uprising of the noble patriots of “the dark and bloody ground.” Notes of gladness, assurances of a brighter and better day, reach us, and the exiles may take courage and hope for the future.

In Virginia, the model of all that illustrates human heroism and self-denying patriotism, although the tempest of desolation has swept over her fair domains, no sign of repentance for her separation from the North can be found. Her old homesteads dismantled,