Another "Southern Outrage" Fabricated

There are major controversy and conflict spreading against prejudice in the South. With the recent passing of the Sherman Bill, many are claiming the government itself is "unconstitutional" and untrustworthy.

The process of manufacturing falsehood to excite prejudice against the South, though somewhat mitigated by the exposures that have been made, is not yet discontinued. We published Thursday a letter dated at Marion, Smythe county, April 6th, addressed to the New York Herald, which charged that a meeting of Unionists of that county had been broken up by "armed men," who having driven the Union men from the courthouse, organized a meeting and adopted resolutions "denouncing Congress as an unconstitutional body, usurping its functions in depriving the southern people of their liberties," &e., and declaring it to be the duty of the President to use the "whole military power of the Government to prevent the usurpation and protect the people of the South," &c. The facts were simply as follows: A meeting was called, and was held at Marion on the 19th March (court day), at which resolutions of a conservative character were adopted. Generally they declared the duty and policy of the people to be to conform to the Sherman law, and expressly approved the measures and conduct of General Schofield. There was no disturbance whatever, nor were there any "armed men" present. There may have been persons present who wanted some other kind of resolutions than those which were adopted; or, rather, they may have desired themselves to control and shape the action of the meeting. If so, they were only outvoted in an orderly and peaceable manner, and appropriate conservative resolutions in no wise objectionable to the ruling authorities, either in spirit or language, adopted. We learn from a gentleman just from Smythe county that the so called Union men professed themselves to be satisfied with the resolutions; yet some of them troubled General Schofield with a cock-and-bull story which, upon investigation, we infer, he found to be unworthy of notice ; and now some one of the same restless and unscrupulous persons writes this epistle, full of misrepresentation, to the Herald. But the machine hitches of late, and even Radicals must be getting very tired of the monotonous fabrications about southern outrages.

“Another "Southern Outrage" Fabricated,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed March 29, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/573.