The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-02-16
COLUMBIA.
Friday Morning, February l6, 1858
what Is Our status.

NAAA~>~3t
What Is Our status'
We were forcibly struck with
speech, made the other day in Con-
gress, on the present and prospective
condition of the country. He must
be a man of enlarged ideas, and takes
true conservative position. He
SAYS that "the idea of certain class
of politicians confiscating the lands
of the South and parceling them out
among negroes and adventures, has
for its object the determination of
the present generation of Southern
whites, and shows the barbarous
animus of that most impractical
party"
He is right. These men would
adopt that same policy of irritation
which was attempted by Elizabeth
and James in Ireland; which has been
fruitful only of heart burning and
discontent to the present hour. It
surely is not the true policy of the
Government to. keep it pressed on
the minds of the South that they are
subject to a CALLING yoke. The peo-
pie of the South, when they have
once given in their adhesion to the
Government, are as much entitled to
the protection of that Government,
and all their rights and privileges
under it, as any portion of the peo-
pie in any other section. Mr.. Daw-
son justly observes. in the course of
his speech, that there is a broad dis
tinction between power and right, and
while the Government possesses the
powers it. should exercise it in subor-
dination to those great principles Of
Democracy and Republicanism which
constitute the basis of our present
System of government.
MIR. Dawson sEs, it is plain revo-
luton of these principles to force
upon the South any modification of
her social condition, any political
status not sanctioned by her people
through their law-mahng assemblies.
Their assemblies have all-with the
exception of Texas, now in session.
come up to the requirements of their
position as defined by the Chief
Executive of the country, and the
South has a right to demand her
legitimate share in the government
of the country.
We give the following brief para
graph from this patriotic speech:
GA strict regard for justice; abate-
ment of extreme pretensions; steady
effort to show the South that the war
was not waged out of hatred to her
people, but only for the preservation
of the national territory unfractured;
a careful regard for her interests in
common with those of the other
States, these, believe, are the only
means which will ever succeed in
obliterating the silent but corroding
memories of errors, wrongs, and
sufferings, of effacing the deep scars
of civil bloodshed, and warming the
estranged hearts of our countrymen
towards a common government once
more. The expressed desire of the
South, if conquered, to belong to a
strong government, and her readiness
to resent the imagined injury inflicted
upon her by the neutrality of the
European powers, should be wisely
taken advantage of to revive and
rlvet the Union feeling"
This is good counsel, and we trust
will ultimately prevail in the councils
of the nation. It is time the true
status Of these Southern States should
be legally defined and determined.
The President has already satisfac-
torily defined it, and we trust that the
Legislative branch of the Government.
under the influence of such councils
as the above, and the enforcement of
the Presidents policy by all the
means at his command, will yet be
brought to see the true interests of
the country, and that fanatics and
radicals may yet be ousted out of
power.
New Publications.