The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-03-02
COLUMBIA.
Saturday Morning, March 2, 1867.
E1-Gov. Brown Favors Acceptance.

clan has written a letter in response
TO note addressed to him by some
gentlemen, in which he favors the
acceptance of the military bill, giving
his reasons for the position he has
assumed in regard to it. The letter
occupies about three columns, and
we do not deem his opinion of such
importance as to copy it. A few
passing notes, however.
Among the grounds the ex-Go-
vernon takes in support OF his views
IS. that it might have the effect of
adjusting the unhappy differences
which exist between the President
and Congress. The former had con-
5ended all the while that the question
of suffrage belongs to the States, and.
on the other hand, Congress refuses
TO recognize the State Governments
established under his direction, with
out their adoption of the constitu-
tional amendment and universal suf-
frage. Therefore, this politician argues
that ''by a compliance on the part of
the States, Congress would maintain
its point of honor
If the people or the politicians of
the South are so unselfish (tbe truth
IS, are so mean) as to ignore consti-
tutional rights, and to sacrifice and
bury without the remotest chance of
resurrection, all the principles of
constitutional liberty, and the forms
even of republican government,
handed down to them by the august
trainers of the Constitution and laws,
upon which those principles alone
can securely rest, in order that the
plesent Congress might maintain its
point of honor, then, indeed, are
they fit subjects for the despotism
which the radical majority of that
body has just created to govern
them.
But the iuea that the adoption of
the bill and amendments conferring
universal suffrage by the Southern
States. when they are to be forced
upon them at the point of the bayo-
net, is the exercise of a right ex-
clusively belonging to the State, is
perfectly absurd. True, the South
ern people may be compelled to be
governed by its provisions, but the
right not to accept it voluntarily still
remains; the right to be consistent,
the right not to aid or consent to
their degradation as a people, is one
that cannot be taken away or torn
from them by any force brought to
bear upon them, or any deprivations
or burdens imposed upon them by
the radical legislators who have
framed this bill They must and will
submit, is this bill becomes a law,
and trust to God, the intcrposition
Of the Supreme Court, and, lastly,
to their own power of heroic endur-
ance for final dcliverance.
Many OF us unfortunates who lived
nnder the short-lived and now extin-
guished Confederate Government,
we'll remember the trouble this same
Joseph L. Brown gave to the authori-
ties Of that Government, by his cap
tious sticking for State rights, sspe-
'ciaily with regard to the Georgia
soldiers, whose services the Govern
ment required and claimed to de-
mand. But look at this document he
has just written, and tell US how his
past conduct can be reconciled with
the views therein expressed. Then
he was the thunderer in defence of
State rights, even to the detriment of
the cause he had espoused; now he
is among the first to counsel abject
submission to the DEGREES of radical
ism! We do not think, therefore,
that he is a fit counsellor for the peo-
pie of Georgia, or of the Southern
States.
The radicals themselves will be sur
prised and amused, while they will