Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/497

 Address of Hon. B. H. Hill. 491

The millions of taxes we have had to pay to feed these vamj^ires upon our substances, and sickening eye-sores to our pride and honor — the milhons of debt piled up for our posterity to pay in bonds issued by these hcensed gamblers upon the property, life and hope of the people of these States — the miscegenating orgies of loyal legislators, and reckless plundering of carpet-bag gover- nors — the readiness with which criminals were turned loose, and the equal readiness with which good citizens were arrested with- out warrant, tried without law, convicted without evidence, and hurried off to foreign prisons without mercy, only because they were suspected of having too much manhood to bear their wrongs with unmurmuring submission — how our lands were depreciated, our society demoralized, and all our most intelligent and virtuous citizens were denied all right to provide remedies. These, and manv more of like character, the future historian will easily see, and must see, though every glance, create nausea. But there are other facts and incidents, not so patent to the world, and not on record, which may be found in every neighborhood, and which we ought to gather up as far as we can. Rich men have been made poor, proud men have been made humble, noble women have been insulted, innocent men have been imprisoned, many, very many, have been too weak to bear their sorrows and the sorrows of their country, and kind death has brought them a refuge from grief And yet the authors of all these wrongs boast of the great magnanimity and generosity they have exhibited to a fallen foe ! They did not hang and exile our leaders, nor confiscate our property ! What conqueror was ever before so manly and liberal? But they made slaves of masters, and masters of slaves, law makers of vagabonds, rulers of strangers, and tax gatherers of robbers. They declined to take liie, only that they might make life a lingering death. They did not drive us from home, only that they might make home the abode ot sorrow and poverty. They failed to confiscate our property by the usual act of government, that it might remain to be taken by negroes, thieves and strangers, as their own lawful spoil! Death, exile, confis- cation, would end the punishment too soon. Such vengeance craved longer revel and slower torture ! And if we, who have been the wit- nesses to these horrors, and the victims of these wrongs, will only gather up and preserve the unwritten outrages and ijnrecorded griefs of the last seven years, all posterity will, with one voice, declare that the punishments inflicted by our adversaries upon the Southern States and people, under the name of reconvitruction, for vindictiveness ol