The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-04-30
Tho Situation of tho South.

| ErastuS Brooks, the able edltor OF
the New York Express, was in attend
ancs at the Press Convention recently
held at Atlanta. he is corresponding
from that CITY to his paper, and we
extract the following from his last
letter:
General Pope is here, and has made
satisfactory speech to the people.
If they obey the law Of Congress,
we'll. If not, then it may not be well.
All the men he has here, and coming
here. is but few over the third of n
regiment, but ono company would be
enough to carry out the law of Con
gress, and as good rs 10000 men.
The most subdued men are some of
the old secession leaders-like eX-
Governor Brown, whose home is here,
and whose influence has been i'm
mense throughout the State. Such
men counsel submission to the law,
and regard it as irrevocable. Gov.
jenkins counsels, not resistance, but
non-action, and, from NIL [ see and
hear, will be over-ruled by an immense
majority of the people. The heart
of the people is broken, and their
spirits humiliated. Two years of
drought, one season of floods, months
of positive hunger, have followed
four years of war, made up of bonn
bardments, sieges, fires, loss of life
and property. Congress, with its
harsh policy of negro suffrage, mill
tary monarchies, registrations, arrests
and punishments, stay laws-as in
South Carolina-is an easy master of
the situation; only you must not ex-
pect the smitten to love the smiter,
for as blood is thicker than water,
nature stronger than coercion, this
is simply impossible. do with us
as you will, and we will obey" is the
general purpose, and Georgia is good
for it by 100000 or 10000 majority,
notwithstanding the letter from Gov.
jenkins. If I were Southern man,
with my home and friends destroyed,
war prosecuted against me two
years, after had laid down my arms,
with no permanent peace or stability
in prospect, with hope of something
permanent and established by further
concessions, I would do the same
thing, for until there is an end of ex-
actions by obedience to DEGREES, there
can be no peace. War is not politics,
but revolution. The South is in the
hands of Government as clay in the
hands of the potter. In seeking to
overthrow the Government of the
United States, it destroyed itself.
President Lincoln has been over
ruled, President johnson is over
ruled, the Congressional policy of
1861 and 1862 is over-ruled, and now
all the civil, provisional and elected
Governments of ten States are in the
hands of five United States Military
Governors. Writing here, in sight
of Stone Mountain and Lookout
MouL tain, and the Kennesaw, watch
ing where Sherman swing his army
in one direction, and Gen. Johnston
i'll another resting at the headquar-
ters of Hood and Polk walking over
the ground where the brave McPher-
son fell-seeing yet the smouldering
ruins of war all along from the bor-
ders of the Tennessee to this "Gate
City," n thousand miles above the
sea--one can better imagine the ne
ccssities and penalties, than upon
nursing under his own vine and fig
tree, at home. I am not surprised,
therefore, at the eager desire of brave
and mistaken men to rebuild what
has been torn down. The needs of
thousands of widows and orphans
demand this, even if there were no
higher appeals "You take my life,
when you do take the means whereby
| live," is rs true at least of the Chris
tian as of the Hebrew. Therefore,
let no Northern man venture to blame
the South for submitting to inevita-
BILE necessity. The principle laid
down by Blackstone, that "any Go
vernment is better than none at all, {"
in this case, decides the issue. Mill
tary monarchy, in our part of North
America, is so repugnant to all our
ideas of liberty, that any peaceable
means of getting rid of it is excusa-
BILE, If not commendahle.
One thing, however, creates burn
ing fever at the South, and that is the
demand made upon the people,
through the Constitutional amend
ment, to dishonor the leaders of the
rebellion. All these leaders were
made so by the people themselves, or
by their representatives. If Congress
chooses to dishonor them, they will
submit with becoming grace, and the
end secured through this Act, like
~ L. II ~c