The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-07-24
COLUMBIA.
Friday Morning, July "a. 1868.
"The Principles of Our War;"


The New York Herald asks, with o
Iudiorous affectation of seriousness:
''Shall we now abandon the prin-
.oiples of our war and show the world
that we know not for what we fought?
This we would do if we should now
put the Government in the hands of
a party that opposed the var; that
embarrassed the Government by all
means during the war;
In the first place, what were "the
principles of our war;" which we are
thus admonished not to abandon?
If we may credit the repeated decla-
nations of Congress, made contem-
poraneously with, and soon after, the
commencement of actual hostilities,
we are constrained to infer that the
. central and paramount principle
which the war was inaugurated to
maintain, was the indissolubility of
the Federal Union and the corse-
quent duty of the Government to
preserve its integrity by defeating
any attempt to destroy it. This was
the grand controlling principle, en-
bracing at once the duty and purpose
Of the Government, that gave vitality
and vigor to the movement Of the
people; and its value as means of
influencing the popular mind, is
proven by the emphasis and promi-
nence that were given to it at the
time. This was the all-suflicicnt
argument by which the people were
persuaded to take up arms against
their Southern adversarics, the very
front and head of whose offending
was that they were successfully resist
ing the authority of the United
States. And it was not until the war
had ceased, that any other vindication
of it was imagined. What change
has occurred to render necessary an
appeal to any other principles than
those which were invoked at the be-
ginning? The principle of the war
was Union;. the most prominent fea-
turo in the policy of the party with
which the Herald is now cooperating
is disunion; and, in order to secure
disunion, we are admonishcd to ad-
here to the principles of war which
was prosecuted solely and confessodly
for the Union. Who will reconcile
the contradiction, asks the Petersburg
Express? So long rs the war con-
tinued, its legitimate principles held
good; but why refer to them now,
after three years period Of
comparative peace? Are the people
now to be told that the war was
waged merely to perpetuate the do
mination OF the Republican party,
and to do whatever might be neces-
sary or conducive to that end, and
consequently to subordinate tho
white race to the black; squander
hundreds Of millions of the public
funds in the prosecution of partisan
schemes; to annihilate every vestige
of States rights; to mascuIato the
chief executive and judicial depart
ments of the nation, and concentrate
all the powers of the Government
into the hands of Congress. If
fraud, mismanagement, usurpation
and disunionism were indeed "the
principles of our war;" and since
these are the special objects of odium
against which the present reaction
ary movement, under the leadership
Of Seymour, is directed, it is difficult
to perceive how his election can re-
suit in damage to the country, even
though it involve an abandonment
OF these principles. and still more
difficult to understand why the peo-
pie should prefer leader who insists
on perpetuating the principles of war
IN season of profound tranquility,
and that, too, at the expense of ma
tlonal progress and prosperity. But
what principles of the war" would