The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-01-12
COLUMBIA,
Friday Morning, January IL, 1865.
The REQUIRED Guarantees.


Southern States before they are ad
mitted to equal rights within the
Union. In recent article on this
subject, it says "that the States
lately in revolt are to be restored to
all their forfeited rights and privile-
ges is undoubted; but what safe
guards shall be provided against
future rebellions !? This is the ques-
ton that puzzles the party in power,
and in the effort to answer it salts
factorily to themselves they are put
to their wits end. They are prolific
in suggestions, and pile safeguard
upon safeguard, guarantee upon qua
rantee until they themselves might
well be confused and bewildered with
their demands. The imperious and
dctatorial manner in which those
organs of faction speak to eight
millions of American citizens re-
quires no small amount of tolerution
to endure. Here is a paper that re-
fused to be bound by the guarantees
of the Constitution, and which allied
itseh to faction that denounced the
Union as league with death and
covenant with hell, calling for qua
rantees from people whose towns
have been burned to the ground,
whose dwellings, are heaps of smaul-
dering ruins, whose plantations are
laid waste, whose labor system is ut
terly destroyed Guarantees de-
manded by journal which scofod
ut the most solemn of obligations,
and which insisted that there was q
higher law than that of the Constitu-
ton |! We were told that the late
conflict was war for the Union, and
and we had supposed that no other
security would be required but it's
restoration; but now that it has been
restored there is to be no end to the
exactions.
If the Southern people had been
guilty of any crime against Constitu-
tional freedom, if they had struck
down freedom of the press, liberty of
speech, ha6eas corpus, in a word, civil
and religious rights, we would be JUS
tilted in adopting such course, but
- e5aaaaks trale to the great charter
. of freedom as when their fathers, the
men of '76, fought for self-govern-
ment and independence against the
mother country. They remained in
the Union until they were assured
that there was a rapidly increasing
party in the North inimical to heir
rights, until they saw that the securi-
ties which they had obtained for their
protection and the protection of their
property were assailed by this domi-
nant party, and until every overture
for compromise was Indignantly
spurned. In our estimation they re-
mained in the Union longer than they
were bound by the terms of the COM
pact, for that compact was nulifed
by the passage of the Personal Lib
erty Bills in nine of the Northern
Legislatures. Had they made the
issue at that time, the Confederate
States might to-day be q recognized
republic-a new memberin the family
of nations. But it was fated other
wise. A Union which represented at
one time the free will of all its mem
bers, has given place to Union piu-
ned together by bayonets, and "the
just powers, which we were told de-
pended upon ''the consent of the
governed, "-(have been superseded
by the despotism of a party. Having,
IS weSeaid, scoffed at the most SOL
of obligations, this party now
demands guarantees-'' safeguards y
against culture rebellions. Why,
what stuff is this? Is the South to
have nc safeguards, that its rights of
property IN peace as aceU as in ara,.-
for we believe belligerents have rights
of property-shall not be violated
or interferred with? What security
has it that this dominant minority, if
they should take it into their heads
to strike at other rights of the South