The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-08-22
COLUMBIA
Wednesday Morning, Aug. %, 1855
The Bearing OF the Southern Dele
gates.


That well-conducted and able con-
servative journal, the New York
NeecS, in its issue of Friday, has an
editorial article on the bearing of the
Southern delegates in the Philadel-
phia Convention, which, although
the writer may have been present
during the sessions of that assem-
bly,, we can scarcely think justified
by the facts, 50 far as we can gather
them from various and very minute
reports of every incident of the pro-
ceedings. The News says:
eft was impossible to suppress the
thought-how changed from the
pride and firmness and strength of
will that were once the elements of
Southern character. We will confess
that to us the Impression was pain
fully conveyed that the South, if
fairly represented ut the Convention,
IS bending too low in its eagerness to
conciliate the North. There are, it
is true, some noble exceptions in the
persons of men who realize that man
hood need not forfeit either dignity
or independence in misfortune; but
many of the Southern delegates
seem to have buried their pride of
race in the grave of the Confederacy.
They wear too much the aspect of
courtiers at the footstool of power, to
be true types of tho people who
fought so well, and who endured so
much for the maintenance of their
political faith. We do not for q mo-
ment believe that these men are con-
sclous of selfabasement, that they
have deliberately assumed the Office
OF tlme-servers; we simply believe
that they have over-estimated the
price that they must pay for their po-
itical rehabilitation.
We are sorry to see Il cotemporary
SO highly esteemed and regarde at
the South write in such strain, and
that he takes such an impression of
the views and feelings of the South
ern representatives at Philadelphia.
We are 10th to believe that there was
exhibited, on their part, such evil
dences of sycophancy or time-serving,
as the Ners indicates. The call for
the Convention, its objects and its
declarations, were before our people;
and, in obedience to that call, they,
with great unanimity of purpose,
selected their delegates to that body
from the best men that the South
could produce, a large majority of
them experienced public men, and not
a few who had served that South and
her cause both in the field and the
foru1a. And looking over the list of
names of the entire Southern delega-
tlons, we find few, with whose charac-
ter and antecedents we are acquaint-
ed, who could fawn and play the
sycophant even s'for their political
rehabilitation. We rather think the
Neecs gave way too much to morbid
sensitiveness, in brooding over the
present condition of the South, and
the wrongs inflicted upon her by the
radical faction in Congress, for we
are well convinced it would not will
fully cast reproach ON the people of
the South or their representatives.
No journal knows better than the
Ne,cs what the South has Mt stake in
the coming contest; that her whole
hope for the future is entirely based
upon the success of the conservatives
Of the North; that at their invitation
they met these conservative men in
council, for the expressly avowed
purpose of concerting some plan of
action to overthrow and defeat the
enemies of the Constitution, and we
may say of the Government. Frank
ly and fully and openly did the South
ern people accept the invitation, and
al the reports that we have read in
form us that their representatives
were received in that body and treat
ed throughout the whole proceedings
rs equals. They may have had to
formally rcnounce doctrines they
once believed in, but the results of
the war had wiped them out many
months bnfOro. there NAV bava baop