The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-10-13
Besides. i think we were & ,.,y,,,,z ,,ooa

our own Terms, ana acted upon them,
when offered by an authority which
you believed, snd L still believe. was
adequate to act bindingly in the pre-
mise5-to complete the transaction.
Much as you were interested in our
doing $50, Ilthink the North was even
more 80. I think it would have re-
stored the Union with the least shock
to its framework, and with the least
possible strain to the Constitution.
Congress, however, interfered; tore
asunderIonce more the knitting frac-
ture, because they averred the cure
would never be fair and sound by
that process, and adopted another.
Their first attemptwas the fourteenth
amendment, which they offered you
as dose preparatory to re-adjust-
ment; but it was not stated to be
final, and there is much controversy
at the North as to your reasons for
rejecting it. If it was the suffrage
clause which checked your action, I
think, locking at it from your posi-
ton, you were wrong. If you could
not swallow the clause requiring you
to disqualify your leaders, my heart
tells me you were right. I hope I
shall never lisp one word of reproach
against any man who refused to 90
back from his chosen foremost men
at such time. But, at any rate, its
submission to you at all showed that
thus far Congress stuck to the North
ern theory of the contest. But next
came an entire change of base and
Congress abandoned the Northern
view of matters entirely, and thus late
In the day came over to the camp you
had been beaten out of, as the more
tenable position of the two. They
took up your old ground and insisted
that you were, after all, alien ene-
mics; your country conquered terri
tory; yourselves prisoners of war
and your rights of every kind for
feited. This is, at bottom, the mean
ing of the Reconstruction Acts under
which you now live. They are based
on conquest, and the right of the
victor in international warfare. 7 do
not think that this was, upon COM
prehensive view of the general and
permanent welfare of the whole peo-
pie, generous, wise, or n consti-
tutional course to take. But it has
been taken, and now we come to the
difficulties of our position. As things
do, in fact, stand, what is it best for
us to do? How can we best modify
or remedy existing evils? The case
would be puzzling enough, at best,
but the addition of the element of
universal negro suffrage, perplexes it
ten-fold. Then, it is complicated by
a multitude of conflicting theories,
preJudices and passions here, as we'll
as at the North, and the circum-
stances of peculiar political excite
ment attending n Presidential cleo
tion, in which this very question of
your proper status is the vital issue,
render it we'll nigh impossible to ar
rive at satisfactory conclusions.
The best consideration, however,
which [ have been able to give to the
subject, has led me to some conclu-
slons which 1 offer with great diff
dence, but in entire good faith. I
propose to try to escape from our diff
ficulties by reversing the process
that brought us into them. When
you appealed to arms to decide
question of constitutional
construction and set the fate of slave
ry upon the ordeal of battle, you
took, as it seems to me, the first ire
vocable false step. You refused to
abide by the tribunal provided by
the Constitution, and you would not
accept the verdict of the people rem
dered under the constitutional form,
when adverse to You. The barriers
which had been provided for just
such an emergency. you, in heat and
lmpatlence, threw down. No written
Constitution can possibly be made
strong enough, in itself, to restrain
the people, unless they themselves
are calm and wise enough to see,
even in their hottest moments, even
when the temptation to grasp CO.
veted object, or secure threatened
end, is most overwhelming, that in
the long run and upon balance of
contin gencies, they will be happier
by observing scrupulously their self
imposed limits. They may have to
lose or defer cherished hope that
they may not, by-and-by, be obliged
to suffer dreaded ill. But the pas
sions which the slavery agitation
caused, were too fierce for argument,
too impatient for the tedious pro-
cesses of law.