The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-07-06
4 The Eurposes or the ssarty..gs

NJ ~ -
purposes of the Republican party at
leastthe more moderate portion Of IT.:
The Republican state Conventions
held within the past few days in
Pennsylvania and Maine afford timely
indications of party feelings and pur-
poses, in view of the special session
Of Congress. R3eS y'
So far as its regular organizations
are concerned, the Republican party
has never countenanced the extreme
principles of some of its leaders.
When the question of reconstruction
was in its earlier stages, and the pro-
posed constitutional amendment
formed the sum of the demands made
by Congress upon the excluded States,
the party conventions in the North
and West accepted that measure as q
fnality. Had the South ratified it
promptly, the party would have been
pledged by the action of its State
conventions to hold that ratification
conclusive, despite all the dissatisfac-
ton of the radicals. The great body
of the party, speaking through the
conventions, ranged themselves on
the side of moderation and concilia-
tion-content to take the constitu-
tional amendment as guarantee of
the future safety to the Union and
the future justice to the freedmen,
which constitute the main ends of the
reconstruction policy.
The obstinacy of the South render
ed other measures necessary, and the
legislation of the last session was the
result. Its increased stringency grew
out of the more urgent requirements
of the occasion, as understood by the
Republican party. The objects in
view are still the same. And the
means employed are not more harsh
than to the party Judgment has SEEM
ed necessary for the completion of
reconstruction. The first process
that of the constitutional amendment,
with its dependence on the voluntary
action of the Southern people-had
failed. Compulsion was, therefore,
substituted for voluntaryism, in no
vindictive spirit, but under the con-
viotion That Congress must do for the
South and the country that which the
South unwisely refused to do for it.
self.
And the party every where declares
its adhesion to the present scheme of
Congress as the sole basis of recon
struction. Individual radicals may
insist on severer penalties and re-
newed delays. They may threaten
further legislation rs preliminary to
the re-admision of the South. But
the State Conventions which have
been recently held vindicate the party
from the suspicion Of bad faith. In
every instance, these conventions
have expressly referred to the acts
now III operation, as providing the
measures by which they arc prepared
to abide. They affirm the justice of
these measures, and to all practical
purposes their finality They have
nowhere and in no manner, directly
or inferentially, afforded encourage
ment to the ulterior measures with
which the country has been threat
ened.
The conventions of the Republi-
cans of Maine and Pennsylvania are
notable In this respect, because their
resolutions have been prepared and
adopted with Il full consciousness of
the spirit in which Congress will next
re-assemble. The resolutions are
firm, as they have need to be. They
assure Congress of the hearty ap-
proval of the party to the full extent
of the present legislation. But they
gine no encouragement to PROPOSE
tions or discussions tending to re-
open the reconstruction question,
undo all that has been done, and in
troduce new elements OF strife and
complication. A marked and most
honorable moderation pcrvades the
resolutions of both conventions.
They reveal, indeed, determination
to allow of no tritling on the part of
the South. They are n pledge of
further support, ii further measures
be ultimately found essential. But,
in the meantime, they sustain the
reconstruction scheme us it is, with n
candor and fairness that should do
much toward counteracting the mis-
apprehensions to which the violence
of the extremists has exposed the
Republican party.
DEATH OF \ UNITED STATES Or