The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-09-17
COLUMBIA.
Tuesday Morning. Sept. II. 1867
Universal Suffrage.

Universal Suffrage.
The veil which passion, prejudice
and party madness have for years in
terposed between the mental and
moral vision of the Northern people
and truth, is being gradually remov-
ed, by the stern realities of the pre-
sent md its hard but irresistible
teachings. The passions which a
protracted and sangninary civil war
excited, are fast becoming merged
. into a sober contemplation of the
dire results they have brought upon
the country, and the Southern peo-
pie themselves, by their upright con-
duct, their patience and endurance,
under circumstances of desolstion
and woe, which would have prostrat-
ed the energies of almost any people
on the face of the earth, have scat
tered the unfounded prejudices, which
it has been the mission of fanaticism
for over q quarter of u century to
plant and propagate among a people,
whose education and training pre-
pared the soil for an abundant yield
Of the noxious and nefarious princi-
pies, which, in the ascendant, have
we'll nigh ruined the country, and
overthrown the Government.
But as We have said, the veil is
being removed. The Congressional
Representatives of these people hav-
ing, through the means referred to,
acquired the dominancy in the Ma
tional Legislature, have done many
foolish and suicidal acts. Blinded by
passion, and actuated by motives,
which patriotism and craftsmanship
repudiate and abhor, they have pull
ed down tier after tier of the national
fabric, and have even laid sacrilegious
hands on the foundation-nay,t the
very cornerstone of the temple of
hberty-the Constitution. Among
the most foolish, radical and revolu-
tionary movements of this Congress
sional party, was that of comforting
the right of suffrage, universal and
without discrimination, upon q newly
enfranchised race, whose past life,
habits and social position, forbade
he idea that they were at all fitted
for the exercise of the high preroga
tive conferred upon them. Congress
sional legislation has conferred upon
them political equality, and elevated
them to citizenship in the eye of the
law. All this, the Southern people,
whom it most effects, have accepted
in good faith, as one of the results of
defeat in a mortal struggle, and are
to-day more ready to protect the
rights thus conferred, than the peo-
pie who conferred them. Tho latter
are becoming alarmed at the fruits of
mischief and discord which are now
rapidly coming to maturity, and do not
hesitate, through the press and at the
ballot-box, to express their earnest
dcsire to retrace their steps, and undo
what they have done. They would
gladly now repair the breaches they
have made in that conservative pol
10y, which inaugurated our republi-
can system of free government, and
without which it must be speedily re-
placed by q government of military
absolutism.
We have been led to these re1ec-
tions by reading an article published
in the New York Round Table, of last
week, u journal which, conducted
with much ability, has heretofore uni
formly and consistently sustained
the policy and acts of the Republican
party. The article to which we al
ludc is under the caption of "Can
We Educate the Negro?" This pro-
position is discussed with singular
ability, and must attract general at
tention among the large circle of
roo Inrc Of fI,ot iourroI Ac f1,o o,t;