The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-02-25

giving testimony in all cases where their
| interests were involved, and establishing
for them fair and impartial trialin their
courts Of justice.
| All this the people Of South Carolina
| have done in good faith, and are this day
as loyal to the Union as the people Of any
| other State. They are now as earnest and
jealous in their support of the Constitu-
ton of the United States, and the honor of
the Republic, as they were 9 few years
since in their efforts to establish and main
| tain Ccnfederacy Of the Southern States.
Everywhere, all over the State, they are
quiet and peaceables obeying the laws of
the Federal Union, and trying to redeem,
by their industry -and economy, their
broken fortunes, and restore the State to
prosperity and happiness! They have no
wish or thought Of dishonoring their
national characters by repudiating the
national debt Of the Union; nor have they
wish for the United States to pay or as
sumo any of the liabilities Of the Confede-
rate Government. Their earnest desire is
to have restored those kind, social and
commercial relations which formerly exist
ed between the different sections OF the
Union. Slavery having been abolished,
which was the great disturbing element
between the North and the South, they see
no. reason why there should now be any
longer dissensions between the two sec
tions. They are mutually dependent on
each other, and never were two people
more necessary to each others prosperity
and happiness. They have descended
from the same families of nations; they
speak the same language, have the same
religion, literature and laws, and are con-
nected by blood and marriage. The sigan-
tic struggle through which they have just
passed proved that their manhood and
courage are the same. Brave and honor
able men, who have fought each other like
men, are over ready to be reconciled on
fair and honorable terms. They who kept
out of the war on both sides are the hard
est to be reconciled.
There is no feeling of unkndness ii
South Carolina towards the freedmen, but,
on the contrary, one Of deep sympathy and
protection on the part OF their former
owners. In the upper and middle portions
OF the State the negroes have all made
contracts, and gone to work and are doing
we'll. 1t is only in the lower country and
on the sea islands, where they have been
interfered with by mistaken philanthro-
Py, that there is any disturbance. If the
Northern people were more familiar with
tho negro, and understood better his cha
racter and disposition, they would give
themselves less trouble about him anu his
political rights. The negro does not de-
sire, and is incapable of exercising, with
prudence and discretion, the right of suf-
frage in his present degraded and ignorant
3
Carolina would be to establish an odious
and dangerous political aristocracy. A
man with q large Landed estate, having it
cultivated by freedmen, would always be
able to control their votes ia every elec-
ton. Instead of having one vote, as his
poor neignDor has, he would have fifty or
hundred, in proportio to his colored
hlrelings. The negro wants bread and
meat for himself his wife and children to
eat, and clothes to wear, but he neither
wants votes nor is he capable of voting on
political questions. 1t is said in sacred
his spots, nor the Ethiopian his skin, nor
can you, by any system of legislation, ele-
vate the African to an equality with the
white man. For over 1000 years he has
remained, in his native country, the same
Ignorant savage and barbarian, without
whilst all the Caucasian nations of the
earth have been going forward with won
derful improvements in all the arts and
sciences OF life. t
There is something in every ones heart
which tells them that human slavery is
wrong in the abstract, and ought not to be.
And yet no fair-minded man, who compares
the condition of the negro in Africa with
that OF the recent slave in the Southern
States, but must admit that he has bean
greatly improved by slavery. In few
years, it is apprehended that it will be
equally manifest that the freedman has
not been improved by the abolition of
slavery. Instead Of increasing and multi
plying, as he did in slavery, his race will
dwindle away, as the Indian has done, in
juxtaposition with the white man. Whilst
q slave, he was fed, clothed, attended in
sickness, taken care of in his old age, and
his children provided for. This is about as
much as any laboring class can realize for
their labor in any country. But would
not restore slavery if l could, and this is
the general feeling and sentiment in South
Carolina. The young negroes and the old
ones will not be taken care of and provided
for as they were in slavery, and they will
die, whilst the planter will make more out Of
the labor OF those who are grown and able
to work.
But il the Northern people really feel 80
much interested in the negro race as they
would have us believe, why do they not
hold out inducements for the freedmen to
lmmigrate North, and live there with their
friends and patrons, who are able to take
care of them?. Nothing of this kind has been
offered or attempted. On the contrary,
many ofthe former non-slaveholding States
have prohibited their entrance under Sc
we're penalties. They have likewise been
denied the right of suffrage in all of those
States, except six. The Southern States
are very willing for the freedmen to 20
North, and have there conferred on them
the right of suffrage. But is it Just and
right, on the part of Connecticut and other
States where the negro has been free for a
century, to be denied the right of voting,
and for those States to insist that he shall
be allowed to vote in South Carolina, where
he has just been emancipated? We do not
complain OF the policy of Connecticut, but
insist that she has no right to enforce on
US different policy. Every State has the
undoubted right, under the Federal Con-
stitution, to determine for herself who shall
exercise the right of suffrage.
1t is most remarkable that whilst two
thirds Of the States are legislating on their