The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-07-03
Letter from Hon. b. E. Perry.

Letter from Hon. b. 3. Perry.
To the Editors Of the Columbia Ph@nir:
There is still heart and life in the
republic. The recent opinion of the
Attorney-General shows that civil
liberty is not yet dead in the Ameri-
can Government. He has demoEsh-
ed the absolute despotism of the
military commanders in the Southern
States. They are no longer to make
laws for us, and remove, at will, our
public officers. The State Govern
ments are to be recognized and con-
tinued as provisional governments,
with oil their political machinery.
This is o bright CLEAN of sunshine
breaking through the black clouds of
tyranny and absolutism which hover
ed over the Southern States during
the past year. All may yet be well,
if we do not voluntarily dishonor
ourselves by riveting the chains
which have been thrown over us in
voting for n convention. We must
have endurance, patience and long
suffering under our expressions and
tyranny. Brave men; who coolly
and deliberately undertook to con-
quer four to one, and fought gallantly
through hundred bloody fields of
battle, should not now, in the hour
of peace, take counsel from base fear
and be panic-stricken with their own
apprehensions. There must be n re-
action at the North. The Democratic
party is daily increasing in numbers
and strength. Their cause is just
before Heaven. They are fighting
for constitutional liberty and self
government, and their next elections
will sweep the Black Republican
party out of existence.
We must never forget that this is
ga orhite mans Government" 1t was
so in its origin, and has so continued
up to the present time. White men
settled the country, achieved their
independence, and framed the Co
vernment for white men solely and
exclusively. Negro equality and me-
gro suffrage were never thought of
by our revolutionary ancestors, North
or South. Massachusetts, and all
New England were rs positive III this
matter as South Carolina. 1t was
known and acknowledged that the
African was of an inferior race, inca
pable of any high intellectual cul-
ture, and utterly unfit for republican
rule. They were held as slaves, and
recognized as chattels by the Puri-
tans themselves. They were bought
and stolen in Africa by the New Eng
landers, and brought to America for
sale as slaves. This horrible traffic
has been great source of wealth and
prosperity to New England. For
four thousand years, the history of
the negro. in Africa, shows no sign
OF Improvement. 1t is only by'long
and continued association with the
white man that his imitafion has en-
abled him to adopt low degree Of
civilization. Professor Agassiz has
recently made manifest that the
negro is of n totally different race
from that of the white man, greatly
inferior, and had different origin.
If the rump Congress had pursued
the ordinary course of n half civilized
and blood-thirsty people, after the
war was over, and hung two or three
hundred OF lis, or as many thousands,
IN each one of the Southern States.
1t would have been an act of great
mercy and wisdom to the Southern
people, instead Of the cunning and
malicious scheme of humiliation. de-
gradation and terrorism with which
they have punished the whole South.
men, women and children, Unionists
and secessionists, innocent and guilty.
equally. The barbarism of q negro
government, gradually growing verse
and more cruel, entailed on ourselves
and posterity forever, is intolerable
and diabolical. The radicals were
deferred, by the opinion of the world,
ltom tneir death victims, in this
civilized and Christian age. But, by