The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-12-08
COLUMBIA.
Saturday Morning, December 8, 1856
The Situation.

party strlfes perish with the pas
sions of the men who give to them
their fierceness and malignity. Prin-
ciples are eternal, and are enshrined
In the public conscience and affection,
long after those who enunciated or
$hose who defended them have sunk
into dust The animosities engep-
dered by the war may keep tenant
less the seats in the halls of Congress
to which the men of the South should
long ago have been cordially vel
coined, but the principles that taxa
ton and representation are insepara-
bic; that-every State is the peer of all
the others, and that each representa-
tive constituency, under our organic
Law, is entitled to be heard in the
national council, are dear to the
American heart; are so identified
with the natural thought, as to form
indissoluble elements Of our political
faith.
From the cotton lands and rice
fields of the South, from it's busy
znarts and industrious homes, come
their apportioned quota of the ma
tional taxes into the Golfers of the
national treasury. Their commerce
pays its appointed imports; their citi-
zens are summoned to the jury box
of the Federal Courts; they respect
the process Of the Federal judiciary;
but the call of the roll Of the national
representatives embraces no name
Srom the Old Dominion or from i'm
9erial Texas. The chosen sons of
She South are shut out, no longer by
sheir own folly, but by the formal
vote of their peers; the national faith,
pledged to q speedy restoration, is
ankept; the obligations Of the Consti-
tuition are UNDECIDED; the flag of the
nation, emblazoned with thirty-six
stars, floats over legislature which
excludes ten States from their having
any voice in the laws which it is in
eisted they shall be governed by.
The President ofHhe United States.
an the annual communications which
ne IS charged by the Constitution
with the duty of making to Congress,
would have been unmindful of his
Srust, if he had not called the atten-
tion Of that body to this anomaly and
urged upon it the policy Of restoring
alienated feelings, by admitting each
State to its constitutional rights. He
has done this. In language terse,
forcible and dignified, he has portray
ed what the Executive has contri-
buted towards reconstruction, by re-
moving the blockade, establishing
the custom houses, enforcing internal
revenue laws, providing mail facili-
ties, urging the adoption Of the con-
stitutional amendment, and gradually
withdrawing military authority as
rapidly us the people were prepared
TO substitute the civil. He reminds
Congress that the Judicial depart
ment has recognized the seeding
States as in The Union by all the pro-
ceedings that affected them as States
in the Federal courts, and that the
history Of Congressional legislation,
IS continuous recognition Of the
same fact up to the time of refusing
them representation. The declara-
tion that the war was made "to pre-
serve the Union, with all the dignity,
equality and rights of the several
States unimpaired, stands unre-
voked. Senators and representatives
we're recognized from seeding States,
though elected in several instances
after the act of secession. The direct
tax of twenty millions was apportion-
ed upon the South as States, as also
sheir representatives by districts. SO,
too, the recognition of Tennessee is
an admission that the functions of the
State were not destroyed, but merely
suspended.
The citations from WASHINGTON.