The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-10-09
senator Sherman at Cincinnast.

mits, however, that the President and
! Congress were in accord up to the assem-
blnS OF Congress. Defending the action
ofthe Reconstruction Committee he AYERS
that it was hot radical enough at the out
set, aud that to meet the needs of the ne
! gro population, the Freedmen's Bureau
bill was introduced to protract the exist
ence of an institution which chad the
plaudits of every good man North and
| South. There were thousands who be-
ileved i'll it Us a temporary expedent, who
were opposed to making it a permanent
institution. He makes n specious defence
Of the civil rights bill, then draws this
| picture of the South:
The white loyal people of the Southern
States are fleeing Northward, and the
Southern States are now in the hands of
rebels The attitude of humiliation and
acquiescence which the Southern people
| assumed after the surrender of their army,
is now turned into the naughty pride Of
| conQuerors. They are numbering and
slaughtering the black people in certain
portions of the South, and depressing
them III every form; but your law m de
so by the two-thirds vote, to protect these
people, IS regarded as dead letter, and
! proclaimed by Mr.. Johnson and his Cabi-
net as null and void
In the face of the legislation Of South
| Carolina and of Georgia, this is a credita-
bic statement for 4 'sHunller' United States
Senator to make. When is sectional hate
to be buried if our public men permit
| themselves to indulge in such malignant
utterances?
lie meets the question OF negro suffrage
i'll this extremely out-spoken, decisive
shape:
Some of my copperhead friends would
say, Now, you want them to vote; you
want to make them equal to the white
man. But say they are a great deal
better than some of the white men l have
| seen. y good many people down South
turned traitors, and | believe that traitor
is the very worst kind OF man, and there
were Soodmany people up here North who,
II they We're not ditto, were very Indifferent,
and looked upon the war as though they
| rather sided with the party down South.
| don know but what negro soldier who
marched under our flag, who has lost a
leg or an arm in the service, and who has
know but that he is as good as any of
! those men who turned from our country
| III its hour of trouble
He argues elaborately in favor of the
| four clauses of the constitutional amend
ment, but makes the following remarkable
''If Mr.. Johnson had co-operatcd with
| Congress in the settlement of the consttu-
| tiunal amendment, we would not have
cared for the Freedmen's Bureau bill or
! the civil rights bill, because the constitu-
tional amendment would have secured all
| these.
We say remarkable, because every intel
ligent man Knows that long before the
adoption of the constitutional amendment,
Mr.. johnson was bitterly assailed by the
radical organs, and that, though Congress
opposed Mr.. Johnsou's policy of the imme-
diatc admission OF loyal representatives
from the South, the Committee of Fifteen
were eight months in harmonzing the
divers views of its members upon the con-
stltutional amendment; and to-day it is
quite possible for man, with entire con-
sistcncy, to advocate that amendment
while urging the essential feature of Mr.
Johnson policy, the Immediate restora-
| ton OF the South. The Congressional
policy proposes to make that amendment
condition precedent to the admission of
the South, without being debarred from
imposing other conditions also, while the
President insists on the right to his seat of
a loyal man legally elected from South
ern constituency.
Mr.. Sherman stoops to the lowest level
in permitting himself to bear such false
witness as the following:
''Tic civil rights bin is now dead let
te.. The President of the United States
refuses to enforce it. And he
now refuses to enforce that law proclaimed
by the Constitution of the United States to
be the law of the land"
Where is the evidence of this damaging
accusation? On what does the Senator
from Ohio base charge that, if true,
would justify impeachment? 1t does not
comport either with the reputation of Mr..
! Sherman or his accustomed fair dealing to
indulge in such wanton misstatements;
and in making so grave an imputation, he
owed it both to the President and the pub
lie to make known the facts on which it is
founded.
Mr.. Sherman seems to forget that the
reconstruction report declared that the
Southern people we're ereduced TO the
condition of enemies conquered in war,
entitled only by public law to such rights
privileges and conditions as might be
vouchsafed by the conqueror." Such a
pretension would have been secuted at in
the earlier years of the war, and was as
sumcd by Congress only to defeat the con-
stant declaration of Mr.. johnson, that
these States were never out of the Union.
and that their loyal citizens were never
affected in their rights either by the acts
Of secession or of the war.
1t is not pleasant to expose the mis-
statements and partisanship of one whose
position and antecedents should keep him
from the arts of the demagogue; but the
virus of radicalism seems to warp mans
memory as we'll as his notions of public
duty and honorable responsibility.
CONFLICT OF CIVIL AND MILITARY AU-
THoRITIES. The Intendant of Tallahassee
having put in force the ordinance Of the
town against disorderly conduct in the
case of some United States soldiers, Gen.
Foster issued a peremptory order forbid
ding the arrest of any of his men. The
fntendant replied that he was under the
impression that civil law had been restored
| 10 10, IL