The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-07-24
On IScconstruction.

we make the following extract
from . speech delivered last week, in
Congress. by Mr.. Robinson, of
Brooklyn, New York. The speech
was q long and able one, and this
eloquent extract will well repay pe
rusal:
And never shall We have recon
struction till reconciliation fans its
holy spark into q vivifying fame.
Never, while men who should die
pleading for forgiveness rs they hope
to be forgiven crawl around the
tom6-stones of the bloody past like
another "Old Mortality" with in
cessant mallet and steeled chisel,
deepening the records of human
frailty which the winds and rains of
Heaven were mercifully providing to
obliterate.
ga canting crow,
SO smooth, SO godly, yet so devilish, too,
Who, armed at once with Bibles and with
whips,
Blood on their hands and Scripture on
their lips,
Tyrants by creed and torturers by text,
Make this life hell in honor of the next"
Let "bygones be bygones," if you
ever mean to let us become one peo-
pie agaiu. If you mean. to keep us
forever apart, say so and be honest.
We have fought the South with their
Johnstons and their Stonewall Jack
sons, and they, by our superior num-
bers and resources, are at our feet.
The prodigal son, at whom the gen
tleman from Pennsylvania Mr.. Ste
vens] recently sneered, has returned
from scenes of dissipation and riot
4 Gus living. If you mean to take him
hback, do so, and kill the fatted calf.
If you mean to slay the prodigal son
and keep the fatted calf kicking up
its heels around the barn-yard, say
so. Do something; but do not talk
reconstruction while you are plotting
disunion. If the erring wife has re-
turned, take her to your bosom; or,
If you cannot do this, cast her from
you forever. DO not be reconstruct
ing her into another and different
person, for that would not be recon
ciliation, but bigamy. [Laughter. |
If you mean to live with her, Danish
from your roof, as you would spirit
from hell, every croaking miscreant
who would shrek into both your
ears the follies and the crimes which
you both committed and which led
to your separation. If you mean to
restore to the weeping Union its
former children, oh, give her back
her darling boy, and not the sickly,
fairy child with which you would
mock mothers prayer.
Sir, these are words of truth and
soberness. L believe the speed
lest way to reconstruction is honest
reconciliation and mutual forgive
ness. l stand not here to justify the
South. While she was in rebellion,
she was my enemy; in submission,
she becomes again my friend I
would not infict upon her ono single
unnecessary humiliation. OF crimes
against us she has been guilty. but
who can cast the first stone of inno-
cence? [ tell you that there wero
more crimes against life, person and
property perpetrated in Massachu-
setts since the rebellion was put
down than in South Carolina; crimes
deeper and more damnable, some
oven nameless, for which no punish
ment was inflicted, not even expul-
sion from the Legislative body of
which their perpetrators were mem
bers. L tell you that life and person
and property have been more unsafe,
that crimes against them have been
more numerous in one single North
ern district than in the entire State
of North Carolina. Life, liberty and
property to-day are in more jeopardy
in Tennessee, which you do not pro-
pose to reconstruct ior control, than
III any other portion'of the world.
ThA Boston Posi- anus that thn