t is stated that General _____ declared, on his late expedition up the Danville railroad, that he had nowhere seen a people so tame and subjugated as those in that district. He said that they would neither assist him nor defend their own homes and property.
The apathy of our people cannot be justified; for a brave man, whatever the fatal disadvantages might be, under which the blunders of his government laid him, would rather fight under them, with a generous disdain of living as the unresisting victim of such oppressions. But their conduct ought to be largely excused; and it may be shown that the chief blame rests, not upon them, but their rulers.
First, our home population are left without arms, ammunition and organization. Their own state has made them powerless. The House of Delegates, although twice called together, and solemnly urged to this, have refused to enable the people to resist, and left them helpless before their enemies, assigning this reason, that if a law was passed to arm them, the quixotic ambition of our Governor would call them all into the field. As though the Governor was not, more than themselves, the representative of the will of the people! Events have shown whether our Governor's apprehension of the dangers and necessities of the times were a fantastic notion or a just and sober foresight.
Second, our home population are aware that the policy of the Confederate Government leaves them unprotected in every attempt to defend their own homes even from the most ruthless outrages. If overpowered in the performance of these duties, the enemy will treat them as outlaws and murderers, and the Confederate Government will surely aquiesce therein. General _____ condemns the people of the Southside because they did not join him as scouts and skirmishers; and yet they knew that if they aided him in these capacities, and were captured, the government whos commission he bears will decline to move one joint of its little finger to avenge them when they are murdered in cold blood as 'bushwackers.' They know that at this very time the best, truest and noblest of the home people in the Valley are hunted like wolves on their own mountains, for the generous attempt to serve the Confederate Government in just these modes, and there is no vengeance, no defence. When General _____ fights, he has the shield of the government over his head; when he is captured, that government protects him in his prison with all its power, and with the whole force of retaliatory threats. But our home people know that when they fight, they do it with the halter around their necks, and when they are captured, will be butchered like dogs, without defence or retaliation. Is this thought likely to encourage the patriotism of a people? Yet, in spite of this shameful desertion of their own government, many of these mend did rally, half armed, one-quarter armed, without ammunition, without legalized leaders, and harass the flanks of the enemy.
But third. It must be confessed that many of the people at home did display a reprehensible apathy and timidity. Yet the people of Virginia were once a gallant people! Are not these cowering fugitives of the same breed and blood with the brave soldiers of the Confederate armies? Whence the difference? The answer reveals a danger created by the feeble policy of our rulers, more appalling than all the devastations of these raids, and the outrages of the brutes who make them. The spirit of the people is toned down, the very capacity for a generous moral indignation is exhausted, by the long experience of outrages unavenged. When man's sensibilities are thus excited, if he is permitted to react, if resentment and resistance have their legitimate active play, the sentiments continue manly and heroic; but if the assaults are repeated and increased in enormity, and no successful reaction is assigned to the sufferer, no just vengeance is tasted, the suffering cowes the spirits which it first inflamed. Just indignation and active resentment give place to helpless terror. The enervated victim, instead of fighting the successful wrong-doer, feels towards him as he does towards a hail-storm or thunderbolt. The fearful process is now, rapidly progressing in the spirits of the people. The government, by its non-retaliatory and defensive system, is permitting the person at Washington to educate the Southern people into Oriental slaves. A little more such suffering unavenged, and their hearts, once so heroic, will be tamed for the yoke. The only remedy is to give the people just vengeance. They must be permitted and encouraged to react against their aggressors, with an active resistance as fiery and intense as their wrongs are aggravated.
O for one year of rulers who should be statesmen, and not merely politicians; who comprehended the springs of human nature, and not merely springs of gun-lock; who knew not only the red-tape of a military bureau, but the red blood in the hearts of a smothering gasping nation!