The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-10-10
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/ cu treasure NlOilOilN SUM-, 1OA bhC
sake of perpetuating the military
reign Of North over South? Was it
to destroy self-govcrnment and over.
throw the foundations OF the Union
that the war was carried on? SO the
radicals would have us believe.
! Neither before the war, nor during
the war, nor since the war, has there
been time when the Northern States
had any right to prescribe civil law
in the Southern States; nor can it be
done now without destroying the
| whole fabric of the American Union.
What business have we with South.
ern local law to-day? ''NVe have con-
quered them, says a radical, ''and
therefore we have a. right to prescribe
what social Jaws we please" Non
sense! We have conquered ourselves.
We have suppressed an insrHrection
in our own body polite. We have
exJirpated q disease which took pos
session of one of our own organs of
life. We shouted till we were hoarse
that the war was ''for the life Of the
nation Let us have done with this
sectionalism, then, and remember
that the United States form one grand
body to which each part is necessary,
and in which each part has equal
rights. The administering of local
law to the South, as conquered ter
r1tory, implies q right in the majority
OF the States to make laws for the mi
nority. SO long as military law was
administered there was no such i'm
plication, but this business of pre-
scribing civil and social law is like
poisoning ones own arm with the
idea that the poison can be confined
to that locality The veins and arte-
ries run through the whole system.
he wrong is done to the whole con-
stltution by an outrage on one part
of the body, and the whole body will
suffer for the wrong. We have no
right, either by law OF conquest, nor
on moral principles, to treat the
Southern States as conquered terri
tories and populations. We may adj
minister the law to individuals as
severely as we please. We may
punish men and women and children.
But the United States Government
might as well repeal the charters OF
New Orleans, Mobile and Charleston,
and wipe them out as cities in the
South, as to declare q Southern State
dead or not a member of the Union.
The moral right, the legal right, the
constitutional right, is just the same
in both cases.
"But. saysa sincere radical, "have
we not the right to refuse them ad-
fo 41a IT,,;A, l.
adopt such laws and social principles
as we think correct?" No; you have
no such right under the Constitution
and laws of our land, nor have You
the moral right unless you give them
at the same time the right of accept
ing or rejecting your terms of union.
The grand wrong, the outrage to
American principles, the rotten timber
which men are now engaged in fore
ing into the Constitution itself, is
this plan of holding State by the
throat and declaring that it shall not
come into your Union, not be pro
tected by your Constitution, unless it
will agree with you to alter that Con-
stitution and submit to amendments
Of your proposing; but when the
State asks, "Will you let me stay out
Of your Union if / don't like your
new proposals." the answer is a fierce
"No." This is hideous burlesque
on the old idea of free American
Union. The vanity of Union thus
constructed is but too plain. It has
not the consistency of summer
morning cloud. It will not have
strength to endure through a gene
ration Of politicians. 1t can only be
a perpetual civil war. Was it for
this we fought?
Ne,o York Journal Of Commerce.