Indifference to Bloodshed.
The
Yankees exhibit a vast amount of indifference in regard to the slaughter of their soldiery by the
Confederates.
At the very beginning of the war, they exulted in the idea that they had a large surplus of foreign and vicious population, which it would be a blessing to be rid of, and which would make excellent food for powder.
Their policy towards the foreign population has been as adroit as the stupidity of the imbeciles who are the luckless victims of their selfishness.
They have always regarded the foreign population as a curse, and only seven years ago got on foot a political crusade to deprive them of all civil and religious rights, which, but for the interposition of
Virginia, would have been eminently successful.
They had willingly employed the foreign labor upon their canals, railroads, and farms, and in their warehouses and kitchens, but had no idea of permitting them to rise above the condition of virtual serfdom which they occupied in their own country.
They accordingly organized a powerful party to put them down and keep them down in the same relation to their superiors that they held in
Europe.
Virginia and the whole
South resisted that notable scheme, and resisted it successfully, not from any peculiar admiration of foreigners, or from any red republican notions of universal equality, but on the ground of principle and justice.--The South had no interests to subserve by taking this course, for there are few foreigners in the
South, and she had labor enough without their aid, and a kind of labor which she prefers to any that could be imported — That the foreigners of the
North should become the chief agency employed for her destruction, is one of the most flagrant examples of ingratitude that history records; but it was not for the men, but the principles of the
Government, that the
South contended, and she has, therefore, no reason for self-reproach.
It is not to be wondered at that the
North, which so short a time ago would have deprived foreigners of all political and civil rights, should now manifest the most supreme indifference to their slaughter on the battlefield.
The only need she has of them is to perform her labor in peace and fight her battles in war. She has a supply so large that the places of those who fall can at once be filled, and the greater the number that is slain the less powerful becomes an element in her society which the mass of her population look upon with aversion and distrust.
In arming and disciplining these large foreign legion, they have given immense potency for mischief to a class which she has always secretly regarded as unreliable and dangerous.
When peace returns, the foreigners and the natives of the
North will have to decide the question of mastership.
It will then be discovered that the
Red-Republican element which has proved so active in a war upon Southern property will be equally dangerous in, war upon property of every description; whilst, on the other hand, the fanatical elements of the
North, which must always have a victim, will turn its fangs upon the political and civil rights of foreigners as soon as it has disposed of its Southern prey.
The time is not distant when these two classes will suffer at the hands of each other the righteous retribution which their common crimes demand.
