The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1870-12-18
COLUMBIAN t:fM1 Mf:Bl3'ff '-C.
Sunday Morning, December l8. 1870.
Tho Gathering Storm. =.

Sl8nq OF the 8atherJnS storm OF the pO-
iitical skies. The olc-is and the muf-
Maa Thunder foretell the power and mag
nitude OF the tempest that is to wreck
many who have braved the winds of
popular opinion. There is no peace
rest-in the condition Of public affairs.
President Grant has msdly, or stupidly,
entrusted himself to the guidance OF the
most blind aud malignant men-men
ghose history shows that they have fat
tened on the pfejudices and ranoors of
the times. and whose only hope OF being
continued in offico is in the promotion
of the sectional passions. tanning the
flames of fanaticism, aud keeping alive
the bitter nre;;ndices engsenderea by The
war. Even the Presidents message is
made the instrument of this atrocious
purpose. Almost its fret paragraph es-
gays to dignity the SANDER of the South
ern States put forth by the lowest and
gaest dishonest of the Radicals-that the
freedman is obstructed in the exercise of
his right to vote. The Presidents at
tempt, or the attempt of some one for
him, to fire the Northern public against
the South, must fail. A falsehood does
not grow respectable by getting into q
high place, but, on the other hand, be-
comes all the moro monstrous when be-
held so impudently displayed. General
Butler, who is now, if "bottled up"
s'bottled up" along with General Grant,
seconds the President in his effort to in
aiot injury and humiliation with his am
uesty bill, than which no more insulting
proposition WAS ever made under the
disguise OF clemency to people. Yes,
says the Richmond Dispatch, it is all the
time the same thing. To humiliate the
South, and to make her rpeoplo distrusted
Sn every way, is the policy of thelultra
Radicals, who have gotten control Of
General Grant. They have promised
from time to time to give up this policy
1:asseen as it could be done safely. e.,
aa soon as it could be done with safety
to the Republican party. But every
year they fail to see that Republicanism
ss safe, and so they can't change their
2olicy. The Southern people must be
ever convicted of cruelty to negroes.
The negro is the petted ape carried about
by the Government, aud which will, as
in the fable, be at last dropped fatally
mpon the rocks and left to perish by
those who have never used him out Of
any true feeling of sympathy for him,
but only for their own selfish and de-
&estable partisan ends.
In this policy General Grant goes
back upon himself-abandon his liberal
views and schemes developed in his pro-
lection of Lee and his followers from
that iackal Judge Underwood, and his
plan OF the restoration of Virginin. He
he'd the people with him in these, for
they were really in the line of peace and
restoration of the country. But, as he
goes back on his own policy, the people
will go against him. He instructed his
favorites in Missouri to stand up against
his Virginia policy; but the people
secuted his instructions, and maintained
that policy. And so is the early Grant
oolicy- developed under the wise coun-
aels Of Schoield and Rawlins, and en-
couraged by General Sherman-adhered
TO by the best and most powerful COM
munities in the Union. They think
that "let US have peace" is mockery,
unless there is something done honestly
and sincerely designed to produce har-
mony, and Danish sectional discord and
distrust from the public counsels and
the nation. So we see how people arc
dropping off from the war party and
expressing their hostility to further pc
'nalties and yindictive policies. The
new movement" in Virginia, originally
favored by Grant, has swept over the
country. 1t was movement in favor OF
peace, equality and justice, in NIL public
administration, including taxation and
'alsbursement-equality in the burthens
and the benefits of the Government.