The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-07-12
TO tho People OF South Carolina.
HEAR THE OTHER SIDE.

no tne GeOpIo Oh bouth CnEot1M0s
S HEAR THE OTHER SIDE.
TO Er- GoUernor James L.. ORR
B SIR: After exhausting, as I had
supposed, your store house Of advice
to the representatives cf the tempo
rary regime in South Carolina, you
now turn TO the constituents who
elevated you to your Office, and
whose views and sympathies you
have misrepresented, to approach
them with your counsel, and to ad-
dress to them long eulogy upon
your own political course. Give me
leave to say, that, in my opinion,
you have failed to impress them,
either with your wisdom in the past.
your conduct in the present, or your
policy for the future Your motives,
allow me to say, I do not now, and
have never, impugned. I accord
you a disposition to meet your re-
sponsibilities, and, in your own way,
to serve the people. But I do cali
in question that fatal policy of mere
expediency, which seems ever to
regulate your politics, and which, in
disregard of immutable principles,
can never subserve the ultimate and
substantial interests of imperilled
communities. You have said, that,
when the Infamous and degrading
Howard Amendment was submitted
to the several Southern States, you
approved of its rejection by the said
States. This was right; and, had
you continued to act in this spirit of
manly protest against the unreason-
able demands of the radical party,
there would have arisen no necessity
for you to attempt your vindication
before the white people of the State.
Every act that goes forth with an
explanation, or that requires one in
the end, is, for that very reason, of
doubtful acceptance. Let the trum-
pet send forth no uncertain sound;
let the bugle blasts of truth ever ring
clear and distinct.
But you did not consult the sug-
gestions, either of the best policy or
the highest principle, in the emer-
gency that the reconstruction Acts of
Congress precipitated upon our peo-
pie. According to your own admis-
sions. in your address before the
Charleston Board of Trade, you ad-
vised the people of South Carolina to
accept the plan of restoration pro-
vided for in the said reconstruction
Acts, and to conform to its degrad-
ing conditions. And your magiste-
rial course, from that time until YOU
were removed, by military edict,
from your high Office, has been in
strict accord with your mistaken
advice, which involved the policy
that you seemed to have proposed to
yourself.
Allow me to observe, that you do
not place the same estimate upon
those reconstruction Acts as do. I
consider them as embodying the
foulest tyranny that was ever perpe-
trated upon vanquished people.
Consult the records of history,
ancient or modern, sacred or pro-
fame, and in vain will you seek for a
parallel. Follow the Goth, the Van
dal and the Hun, in his conquests;
view the line of march taken by
Genghis Khan or Tamerlane; con-
suit the records of Moslem tyranny,
of Greek and Roman conquests, of
Jewish vengeance, of Gentle hate;
examine the treatment accorded to
conquered provinces by France,
Austria or Russia, and L defy any
one to show me q policy more un-
natural, more outrageous, more mer-
ciless, more cruel, than that pro-
posed for the South by the radical
party in the military Acts of recon
struction. This, sir, is bold Ian
guage, but it is true; and challenge
its refutation, even by the warmest
Republican" apologist. The great
feature of the reconstruction scheme
that stands out in bold relief, and
which is conspicuous in its enormity,
is that which, in giving unqualified
suffrage to the blacks, and in dis
franchising many of the whites,
virtually establishes in South Caro-
lima negro rule and negro supremacy.
This is the enormity against which I
protest, and against which it was
meet for the Governor of the old
to have raised an
indignant voice, in behalf of an out
ragged people.
In other countries, and in other
times after the atOrno of 1uor bod