The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-03-27
An English opin1on.

| AnO 44OAAOh Il CUsCC, Va OuO Ob0 Ill
stant, has the following strong article
concerning President johnson and
his policy:
It was said by the great Athenian
orator that Providence always delibe-
rated better for the republic than the
republic deliberated for itself. The
same. thing may be said with the
greatest truth of the United States of
America. In the heat and excitement
of civil war, in indignation for the
past, and apprehension for the future,
they assembled to elect their Chief
Magistrate. As usual on such occa-
sions, the popular choice fell on two
different men-the one to represent
the more moderate, the other the
more extreme section of the Repub-
ican party. The first was Abraham
Lincoln, q man of many amiable and
; some noble qualities, who had, during
four years of the utmost difficulty,
lived down much obloquy and con.
ciliated much opposition; the second
was man who had been apprenticed
in early life to a mechanical :zade,
who had learned to read after he had
ceased to be boy, and who was re.
garded as the impersons.tion of the
most violent and revolutionary aspi.
ratlons of his party. The hand of an
assassin cut short the career of Abra.
ham Lincoln, and everybody looked
with anxiety to his successor. The
war was nominally over, but task of
infinitely greater difficulty than the
conduct of any war lay before the
new President. In America, it is
found necessary to counteract the
weakness of the Executive power by
giving it a fixed duration, and people
saw with dismay that the highest
Office in the republic was vested for
four years in a man whom nobody
had intended for the place, and whose
qualifications, be they what they
might, were scarcely likely to be
equal to the difficulties which sur
rounded him. The best man in
America was not too strong for the
herculean task which devolved on
Mr.. Johnson. The man who closes
revolution performs even a mightier
task than the man who begins or con-
ducts it. 1t was hard enough to say
what should be done between North
and South, and how the Union,
which such torrents of blood had
been shed to support, could be main
tanned. It was still harder to deal
with the black race, newly emanci-
pated from its fetters, and to prevent
those who had hitherto been slaves
from becoming paupers or br:gands.
The foreign relations of the State
were in the utmost confusion; the
Fenians were seeking to draw her
into a war with England, and the
military leaders into war with
France.
1t was under such conditions that,
just year ago, Mr.. johnson acceded
to the Presidency. For one long
year he has been content to balance
one party against another, and to
cherish hopes alternately on the part
of men rendered insolent and tyran-
nical by success, and sullen and in
tractable by defeat. He had no
common enemies to contend with.
The Abolitionist party had triumphed
and were bent on pushing their VIC
tory to the limits of all that the con-
queror could infict or the conquered
could suffer. Forgetting that the
war was mainly waged for the pre-
servation of the Union, they insisted
on placing the slaves on perfect
political level with their former mas
ters. They refused to admit the
South into the Union which had
been reconquered, and determined
to perpetuate their own power at the
expense, even, of the unity and the
liberty of the republic At last Mr..
johnson seems to think that the time
has arrived for abandoning all COM
promise. A meeting at Washington
had adopted resolutions approving
his policy, and he took the opportu-
nifty of addressing to them such a
speech as has not often been heard
in America speech entirely free
from twardy ornament or ambitious
metaphor, but conveying the frmest
determination and the most enlight-
ened principles in the plainest and
simplest language. The Union he
was resolved should be preserved.
He stood where he did at the COM
mencement of the rebellion, to vim
dicate the Union and the Constitu-
ton against disunionists from the
North or the South. He found
100000 people condemned under
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