The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1865-09-12
COLUMBIA.
Tuesday Mornings Sept. IL, 1865.
What to bo Done for Us.

are valueleSs without the labor which
should cultivate them. In the ami
hilation of slave property, the ami
h1lation of all negro labor has been an
inevitable consequence. But, even
we're this labor yet available to any
useful or productive purpose, nothing
could be done, with any considerable
result, unless the plantations were re-
stocked with the necessary, cattle, and
refurnished with the necessary imple-
ments. If the continued cultivation
of the staples be desirable to the
United States we should think
it properly one of the desiderotu of
the North-the first necessity is to
supply the plantations with an ade-
quate plough force. A working force
OF negroes Of fifty hands on planta-
ton, implied at least twenty plough
mules or horses. It was the associated
labor of mules and negroes that en-
abled the cotton planter to achieve
such wondrous results in production,
to compass so large a territory with
his labor, and realize those profits
which resulted rather from the extent
than the nicely of the cultivation.
Necessarily connected with this Joint
force of negroes and mules, was the
employment of large variety of i'm
plemcnts, ploughs, plough-stocks,
hoes, shovels, axes, the common cart,
the timber cart, the wagon, the gin
house, thresling- house, the corn
sheller, the thresher, the blacksmith
shop, the cooperage, &c. Briefly,
every plantation of large dimensions
was a village, sclf-supplying and self
supporting, after being once fairly es-
tablished and in operation. This
understood, it will be easy to compre-
hend the embarrassments, in the re-
establishment of all these things, in
Tile case of people who are totally
without money; who have nothing
left to sell; who have been stript of
horses, mules, cattle of all sorts, every
tool and implement, every wagon and
cart, and are lacking besides in all tho
facilities of communication and trans{
portation to which they have been
accustomed for thirty years Per-
haps, no people ever lived who have
been SO thoroughly deprived of all
that made Life desirable. A barbarous
people-a nomadic hordc-never &C
c,lstomed to civilization, or its aids,
would suffer little from any loss; but
civilization, which refnes and ele-
Yates and fortifies and fructifies during
peace, is rendered more helpless than
any state of barbarism by the ravages
of invasive war; and such war rs
ours-a war so recklessly conducted
as. If in defiance of all those rules of
convention which civilized nations
have generally adopted as essential
for modifying human suffering, and
Tor preserving still the essential quail
ties of humanity in the bosoms of
men-has left the country in such a
state of desolation, that the most
hopeful industry, and the most gene
rous energies, might we'll despair of
ats recuperation, even in the lapse of
many years, unless great succor is
yielded to us from abroad. We claim,
accordingly, from the United States
Government, that it puts us in condi-
ton, if only for it's own sake. to
resume our labors in the various pro-
vlnces from which she has torn, by
her armies, all the recuperative and
productive forces. It will be no profit
to the Government if it makes CON