The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-11-16

leader:
One fact which the late elections in
the North must make plainly mani
fest 20 the people in the South, is The
determination Of the country that the
old politicians who have misruled the
country for tbc past fifty years shall
not again come into power. Nothing
served moro to arouse the strong
party feeling displayed i'll the late
political contests than the promi-
ncncc taken in the attempted recon-
struction OF the democratic party by
old secession leaders OF the South,
like Wise and Stephens, to the ex-
clusiou of Union men like Joshua
Hill, and the copperheads Of tho
North, like Clymor and Hoffman, to
the exclusion Of sound war democrats
like Dix. The country does not need
and does not desire the rc-organ-
ization Of the democratic party with
copprrheads and rebels at its head
and the people of the South had bet
ter repudiate the demagogues of the
past, and With younger leaders, from
the middle, not the moneyed class,
take 4 new departure for prosperity,
enlightenment and peace by adopting
the. he.constitutiona1 amendment, which
restores the ''bone and sinew" Of the
South to theirrights and privileges
in the Union, while it forever con
signs to obscurity the old leaders who
so basely oppressed and then foully
betrayed them into q war against
!
1t is foolish for the people of the
| South to say Eve must stand by our
old leaders, for it is q false sense of
honor which induces q man to uphold
another Who has betrayed him into
committing wrong. The treason Of
the Southern slaycholding aristocracy
against the country was not greater
than the inhumanity which they had
for years systematically practiced
upon the lahonng class Of tie South.
The controlling Interests in slave Ia
Dor and landed property, at the
South, had been, for many years
before the war, in the hands of less
than 0,O00 OF tie 300, 900 persons
who owned slaves; and these 10000
have been the rulers, not only of the
South, but up to 1860, they dictated,
at Washington to the country at
large. They welded q great in hucncc
for evil over the people of the South
and retained that power by the most
infamous OF means. They persist
emily kept the poor whites" in ig-
norancc, discouraged free schools and
established only those Of the most
expensive. character, leaving the
whites to growup i'll ignorance, we'll
knowing that, as long as they were
Ignorant, they could be ruled. They
lmbucd the two races which form the
lahoring class of the South-thc
poor whites" and ncgroes-with the
idea that their interests were antago-
nistic, and, by artfrl means, created
between them u prejudice which, to
this day, and must for many years to
como, politically divide the laboring
class of the South, when it ought to
be united in purpose, as it is in inte-
rest. Through the ignorance of both
these classes and the prejudice exist
ing between them. the Shareholders
were enabled TO rule them with q rod
of iron, and the slavery i'll which the
negro existed was not more absolute
than that endured by the "poor
whites" This ignorance and preiu-
dice WAS the strength Of the rebel
lion; foG had the people of the South
understood the demagogues who
ruled them, andthc purposes to which
they aspired, there would never have
been any rebellion.
The same leaders now seek to re-
store their lost power, and to revive
by the reconstruction Of the old De
mocratic party the machinery by
which they ruled the country before
the war. But Congress has prepared
means for forever dispossessing
these leaders, and the North has
firmly and positively decided, in the
late elections, that Congress is to be
sustained ana the amendment be
made a law. The provision is wise
one, framed in the true interests Of
the whole country, for the benefit of
the laboring classes of the South,
both white and black, and the former
should step forward to assist in the
work OF shelving their old leaders
and multiplying their schemes by the
adoption OF the constitutional
amendment.
SUMTER CoUm. The JVuchuaoa,
alluding to the opening of the fall