The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1870-03-03
COLUMBIA, S. C,
Thursday MORNING., Maroh 3. 1870.
Root Hog; or Die.

shadowed by the Nation, while congratu-
lating its readers upon the triumph Of
the fifteenth amendment:
''The agitation against slavery has
reached an appropriate and triumphant
conclus,on, and the negro, from being
the subject OF the strangest strnggle in
rank of d1e SordiHary !. and somewhat
heavily weighted wayfarer On The,, dusty
and f6ggsd Highway Of competiti6h!!''
In other vnrdss his odestiny;s is to be
the same as Wendell Phillips prescribed
to sGraeley the other days - Root hog,
or Ha;iS Ha;i is9s Sg,S The fine We always warned
him of is upon him. Used as d mere tool
in the hahdS oR political tricksterss to
secure the suceess of their policy and
degrade the South to the utmost limit,
he is now to be dropped as o useless,
worn-out toa, No more golden promises
OF forty aoree and q mule, and no more
appropriatie It isnow supposed that.
his natural antipathy to the white race
and his excited passions viii suffice 10
prsesrve' suon o. Hvinga'heH in the Sbuth
as tei sfeptuaA u prevent its ,oserthrown.
intallsetaal ana political power from ever
rising pgesnyt to confront Northern ideas;
and thus they leave him, They know
that psatsab1S, refined and wealthy peo-
pie musb eli igStShidIatiaaily iItiai emigfate under such
q statstof society. ana TIE addition thus
aggregated to, the North IN population,
wealth and intellect, must Id time aid in
drawing that line of nolitieal;and social
demarcation between the two, which
will con6rnsathe necessity. already in
contemplation, Of governing the South
directly as dependency. With de-
based, degraded population Of diggers.
delivers and toilers of all shades of color
and species of nationaIties, the real seat
Of empire msss necessarily be forever
afterward centred at the North. We find
confirmation of this project in every
move now being made or foreshadowed
upon the political chess-board. And the
question of destiny, thus confronting
the negro, assumes alarming proper
tions. -a
Cast off and abandoned, this race,
ever heretofore dependent upon the
white, has now to decide whether, by
creating insensate dissensions in endea-
voring to force an equality denied them
even by the God of nature, they are to
carry themselves and the country they
live in headlong to destruction; or whe.
ther, by living on terms of harmony with
the white race, they may still preserve
in the land, elements of advancement
and of power, which, in time, may work
out for them grander destiny. In con-
sidering this question, they should real
ize, that as race, they are as much
chained to the soil, by reason of their
poverty. as they we're before enfranclse-
ment, and whatever be the fate OF the
country, they cannot escape it, On the
other hand, the whites, by superiority
of intellect, means and capacity, can
always leave and will leave for new fields
of life, if subjected to the unbearable
exactions now meditated by the violent
and unthinking.
Wealth always centres at the homes of
commerce. Agricultural people are in
variably poor as communities, and if the
South is reduced to mere agricultural
country, as it will be unless wise counsels
guide the negro in this, the day of his
great peril, life of toll and penury will
be entailed upon his posterity, to rise
from which every effort made will prove
abortive. To whom is he indebted to-
day for his schools and other advantages,
but to the taxes realized from O commu-
nifty held together only by considera-
tions of contentment and prosperity?
Destroy these, and with the commercial
decay which will then set in, will fade
away all his chances of enlightenment
and progress. The Government which
freed him, or rather the people compos-
ing it, now throw him ovesboard, to sink
OF swim in the great struggle of life.
They do SO with the confession that he