The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-06-14
TiseS costoa Tax-SThe possess NsrvSl-
HypOcrfsy.

We see it stated. in our exchanges
that the people Of New England, es-
pecially of Boston. areioud and vioe
lent in their oppo, ,dtion 10 the pro-.
posed cotton tax. They soy it win
discourage the growth of the staple
upon which they are much more de-
pendent for bread than are the South
ern people. This is all true; the
pocket nerve has been agitased, and
radical legislation on the subject viii
have to take a step backward.
But the most amusing exhibition
of alarm en- this subject comes from
those whom the 1Fi6aaae calls the
Northern cotton planters, now ope-
rating on plantations in the South.
A telegram informs us that Brig,
Gen. A. L. Gurney, now at Selma,
Alabama, has sent to Washington a
rvmonstrance against the tax, signed
by, the Union officers aud soldiers en-
gagged in planting in that State.
They say that cotton cannot be raised
at profit under the weight of such a
tax. Well, if these oficers-most Of
them, we presume, attached to that
delectable institution, the Freed
mems Bureau - with its superior ad-
vantages of procuring freed labor at
cheap IA ue-advantagcs which are,
III the majority of cases, denied to
the Southern planters cult
vate cotton with any profit under the
proposed tax, what is to become of
those to the manor born who are try
ing, with broken down mules and
patched up plows and wagons, to
raise it on their wasted and impo-
verished plantations? But the evils
of rampant legislation are thus COM
ing home to roost So be it.
But the capstone Of the arguments
used by these ~pfficial Northern cot
ton planters, as specified in the tele-
gram referred to, is that, if Congress
levy this tax, IL aciO ,l,'ire om $4,000
Northern ea'aigrnnts, no'c there, and
prevent Northern emigration, with
out which these loyal cotton planters
say The Southern States cannot be l0'gel
Of disloyaly
Well, we must confess that the
dose of the Bureau, as analyzed by
Drs. Gems. Steedman and Fullerton
IS sufficiently powerful to purge the
Southern States of anything obnox-
ious to their social and political we'll
being, but we imagine we see signs
of the medicine being disposed of by
different operation. But, seriously,
are these men crazy, or are they de-
termined in persisting that the South
ern people are not acting in good
faith towards the Government they
have pledged themselves, now and
hereafter, to Support, simply for their
own emolument? 1t is wrong, per-
niciously wrong, thus to misrepre-
sent the people of the South. There
is not an intelligent and candid
United States officer, now at the South
on duty, or who may have visited it,
from General Grant down, but who
knows such statemer IS must be made
from interested motives. and arc not
based upon the trnth. These repre-
sentations, however, may have the
effect desired-to stop ultra legislation
rs regards this cotton tax.
PLowING Up THE REMAINS OF THE
CONFEDERATE DEAD-While the
noble and benevolent women of the
South, are engaged in strewine
flowers over the graves of the Con-
federate soldiers who fell during the
war. the negroes are busily employed
IN plowing up the bodies of the
brave Confcderates who fell upon the
battlefield of franklin The Buffalo
New York; Coao'ier. in noticing this
tiendish atrocious barbarism, saws:
The Freedmen's Bureau, presided
over by radical, whose pretensions
to extra piety have been used to
throw cloak of responsibility over
the iniquitous Bureau, has turned,
with fiendish righteousness, tho
hat nf L>con1,1,~