The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-09-01
The ssatus ia csngrsss e shs CArpss-
BatSrers. -, y q

The statu. ia csngrsss e ths CA-pss-
BaSgers. \ ::
Ne one who has irsAd shss Proceedings
Of Cong eFess since thesntrance into thss
-bdey ofthe farpet- bag rlsss Of nssmbers
oaH have failed to notice the little. infiu-
-erae. that Ithis olass exerts. With rare
exceptions, these persons are wanting in.
those intellectual. and moral traits that
command respect; and the fact, generally
admitted. that they have obtained their
Offices by petty means. causes them to
stand in no enviable light even in the eyes
Of men in the North of their own party.
Speaking Of the caTpet.bag class OF Con
gressmen, the New York Vorld says:
Now. that the people of the Southern
States are slowly emerging from the con-
dition Of captives to recover their rights
with their duties as citizens of the Union,
it will begin, perhaps, to be clear to oil
mems perceptions not only that the clues
of persons known rs ''carpet. baggers"
really arc held in contempt at the South,
but, also, that they deserve to be hold in
contempt, and that in the North rs well
as in the South. The carpet-bag in It..
self is harmless necessary impediment
enough, nor is it intrinsioally contempti-
BILE that q man whose whole worldly
goods are compressible within O carpet
bag should pack them into one, take it
up, and set forth in search of fortune.
Honest men, men of sense and of cha
racter, with or without carpet-bags, are
needed in the South, as they are needed
in the West, in the -wherevert there is
work to be done, wherever there are re-
sources to be developed aud opportuni-
ties to be put to profit. Nor is there
any reason to suppose that the South,
any more than the West or East, desires
to repel such persons from its borders.
The "carpet.bagger" whom the South
abhors is po such. person. The true and
odious carpet bagger'' is aspolitical adj
venturer who has got place and pelf for
himself by making the poverty and po-
litical prostitution Of the Southern whites
work together with the credulity and ig-
norapce OF the Southern blacks for his
personal. advancement. All honest and
respectable Northern leaders of the party
with which such adventures have neces-
sarily acted know perfectly wen that the
arts and influences by which the '.car-
pet-baggers" have gained their object
are influences and arts which no honest
and respectable man could possibly use
either at the South or ut the North.
Knowing this, they naturally shun all
but the most strictly formal associations
for strictly political purposes with such
persons.
The average radical Congressman from
the North is not much of hero, nor
does he greatly resemble the Douglas of
Sir Walter Scotts chivalric poem. But
he has sense and self.respect enough to
make as sharp q difference between the
official and the personal claims of the
average radical "carpet-bagger" from
the South rs was made by 'fhe grim old
Earl between the official and the person
al claims of the English envoy:
''My manors, halls, and bowers ehall,s still
Be open at my sovoreign's will
To each one whom he lists, howe'er
Unmeet to be the owners peer;
The hand of Douglas is his own,
And never shall in friendly grasp
The hand OF such as Marmion clasp"
This abject and twilight condition OF
the radical carpet-baggers in Congress is
one of the many hopeful auguries of the
near dawnipg of q better day. The con-
tempt in which these men are held is re-
acting, slowly, perhaps, but surely, upon
the system which has called them into
being. The spectacle of class of Con
gressional Pariahs representing the ty-
ranny of IN ignorant minority over an
intelligent majority, cannot but be revolt
ing to free people Armies and acts OF
Congress may make such Il spectacle pos
sible for time. They cannot make it for
any long time tolerable.
|
PITCHED BATTLE IN TENNESSEE An
exciting fight took place at Pocahontas
Station, on the Memphis and Charleston
Railroad, last Monday. notorious
horse thief had been arrested few days
before and committed to Jail at that
place. On Monday morning, about 1C
O'Clock, q party of some ten men,
strangers in tho region, and supposed to
be residents of the neighborho ood ada.
cent to the village of Jonesboro, in
Itawamba County, Mississippi, rode into
Pacahontns, and after ''liquoring mp
pretty freely, commenced swaggerinp Q