The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1865-10-01

declared open war upon the noble
reconstruction policy of President
johnson, are Charles Sumner, Thad-
deus Stevens and Benjamin F. Butler.
We.can well understand why two of
these persons should be filed with
hatred of the South, and should seek
to degrade and impoverish the section
by which they imagine themselves to
have been terribly wronged.
hir. Charles Summers S special cause
for hating the SoutL is too well known
to need comment at this late day.
The grave has long since closed over
the unhappy author of his suferings,
but the wounds which he inflicted
appear never to have healed.
During the invasion of Pennsyl-,
wanna oy the Confederate forces, the
vast iron works of Mr.. Stevens were
destroyed at the instance of some
Confederate General, and their de-
struction enkindled in their owners
heart the flames of an undying wrath
so relentless that he hungers for the
ruin of the offending section.
Besides these grounds for personal
hostility, Sumner and Stevens were
educated in q school which inculcated
lessons of sectional hate thirty years
ago. They have never professed good
will for the South; and now that they
each have special reasons for detest-
ing us, they cannot be accused of
having ever practiced the sins of
hypocrisy and deceit. We feel for
these politicians the dislike which
ones. enemies invariably excite, but
we have no complaint to make of bad
treatment pr deception at their hands.
Mr.. Buffers case, however, is yer,
different one.
Long before the war there were
some half dozen s.National Demo
Gratis" in Massachusetts who minis
tered to every prejudice, passion and
demand of the most ultra Southern
politicians. Having nothing to hope
from their own State, they utterly
defed, derided and despised: sMassa-
chusetts politics., and protested, in
and out of season, their devotion to
the South. They always took sides
with us in every quarrel with the North
and applauded many acts of excitable
Southern members of Congress which
did not meet the approval of the
calm, dlspassionate men of our own
section. The injury which these men
did the South was incalculable. They
hattered where they should have .ati-
monished, and encouraged where
they should have dissuaded. Reck-
lessly Indifferent about their political
standing at home, they knew that the
road to wealth and honor was through
the good. opinion of the Southern
people.
The South then made and unmade
Presidents, and the Massachusetts
junta'' played the part of obseuuious.
ready parasites. Prominent among
these men was Mr.. Benjamin F. But
Ter. 1t was with his sanction and nm.
proval that Mr. Hallet, in 1852. rs-
constructed the Democratic platform.
interpolated into it the famous Reso-
lusons of 179S-'99, and identified the
national democracy las it was alleged
in South Caroina) with the doctrine
of secession. When the real inter
ests of the South should have taught
us to acquiesce without q struggle in
the territorial views of Judge Doug
las, it was just such men as B. i.
Butler who encouraged the South III
a course of suicidal folly towards that
eminent statesman. AS late as May,
1860, in the last National Convention
of the Democracy, had we then
known as much as we know now, ,the
horrors of civil war might have been
averted by the nomination of Judge
Douglas. But we rushed bindly over
the precipice which led to disunion,
encouraged and stimulated by B. F.
Butler and Daniel s. Dickinson.
Richmond Times.
Among the most important pardons