Columbia phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1865, 1865-05-12

tbe last three years and ThalG have occupied
themseves IN demonstrating that tie North
could never conquer the South, are now bdeied
Y 'th very different: and not altogether con.
sistent problem. They establish, to .heir own
momentary Satisfaction, that the South, of
whose ultimate 1subjugation" they scarcely
venture to hint "a doubt can never bs. held
and administered as part of a free public It
will be. they urge, the Poland or Gungary-on
the continent they are SO unkind as to say the
Irennd-of America. If the authors 8 f these
doleful rresages had ever been right in ~ anv
single point arising out of the rebellion-if
they had not blundered from fret to last
upon the 'hilitary problem-we should enter
tam greater confidence than 1t is possible for
us now to feel in their political vaticnations.
On every element of the great theme, they
have gone wildly astray. They understood
neither the material strength nor the moral
character of the Northern and Southern popu
| 1a'lons. nor the social organizations which are
divided from each other BY Mason and ,Dixon.s
line. The ignorance-incuding total ndif-
! ference to the facts of American history and
biography--vitiases their political prognos,ica
tions as completely as it has reversed their
military prophecies.
Their fundamental error lies n supposinc
| that the Federal Government will have to deal
IN peace. mainly. if not exclusively with. the
people whom they have been combating ia
war. This is not the case. Even if we looi,
solely TO the present population of the South,
We must distinguish between the crimes of the
Confederacy aud the bulk of its inhabitants.
The great slave-owners of the South-the ten
or twelve Thousand men for whose interests nd
at whose ihstgation the Var beean-will be
impoverished and discredted. !flle,r ascen.
dancy will be forever overlhrown The cass
OF "Poor whites" by whose docile suffrages.
aided by the three tifths vote, they maintained
their political influence. has ssheen thinn ed by
the war; and those of them whom disease and
the sword have spared have been taught some
thing as to the guidance which they have SO
blindly followed. The elements Of disaffection
have been. TO very great degree, burned out
by the war. The class which reuains-rnorallv
stronger than it ever was before, and proporr
t;onateiy far more pumerous-ncver had any
quarrel with the free States. and is not Tow. SO
far as can be judged, ill-atfected to the Union.
But even if the entire population of the
South were animated by the btterest hostility
to their Northern fellow citizens and to the
Federal Government, and transmitted this feel
Kg to the next generation. the difficulties con.
jnred up ia the way of peaceful reunion. on
the basis Of equal rights and free institut ions
would be by no means inserarable. It has
often been shown that the descendants of the
Americans of the revolutionary period form an
-exeeedingl' email element the present ponu.
aiion OF the United States. That consists
chiefly of emigrants and the descendants Of
em'grants, from Europe. whose course has been
directed exclusively TO the States of the North
and North west. The moral plague of slavery
h.