Alexandria Gazette

FEELING IN VIRGINIA.--The evidence before the Reconstruction Committee is of a piece with nearly all that has yet been offered respecting the South. All the witnesses who know anything about the South, who live with the Southern people, who have access to their hearts and their hearths, who are not barred out from the means of knowing their genuine wishes and feelings, by the prejudices of the war or the resentment which petty tyranny evokes--all these testify that the South accepts the issue in good faith, is prepared to stand by it, desires peace, is performing, not only faithfully but generously and with a noble liberality, her duties. All those, on the contrary, who smart under social exclusions, who profit in pocket or honor by the protraction of war, who shrink from a return to honest industry and primitive obscurity, who, on the pay of a good clerk, are driving fast horses, and buying real estate, and living in luxury--all these proclaim that a state of things exists which renders the extension of their patents indispensable to public safety. Will the eyes of the people never open?--Petersburg Index