June 20, 1863, [Little Rock] Weekly Arkansas Gazette
The least patriotic, and the most dangerous, sign of the times, is exhibited in the mania which possesses a portion of our people for trafficking with the enemy, which, more than any thing else, nay, more than all other causes combined, panders to the malign spirits of Speculation and Extortion. Fortunate is it for us that the great mass of our people are sufferers and losers by the existing state of affairs; if they were gainers, all true patriots would fervently, and from their hearts, say “Good Lord deliver us,” and the country, from–ourselves; as it is, the good and the patriotic pray–”lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil” of becoming speculators and extortioners, especially on the necessities of the poor, and the families of the absent, patriot, soldier.
Our circumscribed limits compel us to allude only in the briefest manner to the evils of which we have spoken.
Traffickers with the enemy have a direct interest in depreciating the funds of our government at home, for the cheaper they get our funds, the more they make in their exchange for those of the enemy.
Merchandise brought from the enemy’s lines does no good to the people; it meets not their demands and supplies nor their wants; it comes in such small quantities as to make a luxury almost unprocurable in its character; when brought, it is put up at auction, where traitors and weaked-backed patriots vie with each other in showing which attaches the least value to our currency, by giving the most extravagant amounts of it for comparatively nothing.
A farmer or a market man comes to town and finds calicoes, which, ordinarily, sold, in this market, before the war, at 10 to 20 cents, selling from $3 to $5 a yard, and other things in proportion! He buys nothing; for his wife and daughters spin, weave, and make his clothes; he tans the leather and makes his own shoes, and, if necessary, makes himself a cap from the skin of a coon or a fox; but though he buys nothing, he feels justified in putting the prices of horses, cattle, beef, bacon, pork, meal, flour, indeed, of every thing he raises or makes for sale, up to rates corresponding with those for which merchandise sells. The consequence is, extortionate prices; sellers fill their pockets with money; it is extorted from the necessities of the people; and is crushingly oppressive on the poor, especially on those women and children whose natural protectors and supporters are in the army, and defending the country from the enemy.
Trade with the enemy has a demoralising tendency and effect, not only on those engaged in it, but on all within the sphere of their influence. If they make money by the war, it is their interest to oppose all things tending to peace. Besides, its advantages are not mutual–the advantages enure to the enemy–the disadvantages are with, and the burthens upon, our own people. We will not say that all persons who go into the enemy’s lines, and bring out goods, take the oath to support the Lincoln government; but we believe a great majority of them do. The Yankees are not apt to give the monopoly of trade with us to their known enemies–such advantages are more apt to be reserved to themselves or bestowed upon their friends. How many traffickers with the enemy who were our professed friends, when they had to be conscripted, deserted, and are now at Memphis in the Federal detective police, or in other positions where they play the spy and informer on our people?
It needs no argument to prove, to an intelligent mind, that trafficking with the enemy is, of necessity, demoralising in its tendency. Besides the corrupting hope of gain which always accompanies it, their agents, pimps, and spies are admitted among us under its pretexts and pretences. Philip, of Macedon, made it his boast that he could […..] any city whose gates were broad enough to admit a mule laden with gold: In words and practice he was a Yankee.