The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1872-06-23
COUMBIA. S. G.
,dday Morning, June %, 1872.
Our Next State Government.


and manifesting an interest in our
quadrennial Presidential elections. They
are important crises in the history Of
our Government, not freighted with
such absolutely vital consequences, per-
haps, as, with our American extrava-
ganzas OF expression, orators, politicians
and enthusiastic editors are accustomed
to accredit them, but they do materially
affect the interests and progress of the
country, and, in some instances, the
liberty and happiness of our people.
The condition of several of the Southern
States to-day, SO distressing and ruinous
to their particular citizens, and so humi-
liating and shameful to the American
Republic, stands as the fatal result of
Radical success in 1868. The character
and continuation of their rotten govern
ments are directly and unquestionably
attributable to the reconstruction policy
OF the present Administration, which
was founded in sectional hate and
directed by the dictates of blind fana-
tioism. This Administration has affected
the country more powerfully than any
Of it's predecessors. and, as rule, more
disastrously. The next will be but
little less important Those who favor
Grants policy towards the South, with
its consequent carpe..bas governments,
public plundering and prospective ruin
to what was once the garden spot of the
republic, will be anxious to see him con-
sinued in power and his programme
completed; others at the North, whose
patriotism extends beyond Mason and
Dixon's line, and who can sacrifice the
demon of sectional hate upon the altar
OF common country, together with US
of the South, who have national regard
for our section and immediate interests,
will as earnestly oppose the hide-bound
son of Galena and his destructive
schemes.
On one side or the other each mans
hopes and sympathies Yill be arrayed.
One cannot help it, even if he would.
In South Carolina, we, the white people,
have centered our hopes upon Greeley.
We expect great things Of him. not only
in the working of needed reforms and
IN the purifioation of the General Go
vernment, but also in direct relief for
South Carolina. IT he be elected -as
there is now strong reason to believe he
will be-he will never sit quietly at
Washington and see rascalIy carpet-bag-
gers plunder our helpless people-much
less sustain them in their nefarious de-
signs, as Grant has done.
But we can do nothing directly for
Greeley and Brown in this State. With
such population as we have, the pre-
sent Presidential campaign can in no
way be made to serve the local reform,
rs in most other communities. Two
years from now, Greeley, as President,
will, we doubt not, exercise a saving in
fuence upon the colored voters of our
State. They will flock to him after he
is President, and free themselves from
the shackles with which the carpet-bag-
SCfo AdS0 UOuuu tuou1s LII Cu6 meaQ-
time, what arc we to do-what sort of q
government are we to have in this State
for the next two years? This is ques-
tion of as much Importance to us as the
election of Greeley and Brown. There
is this difference, however: We can have
some influence in determining the cha.
raoter of the SUCCESSORS to Scott & Co.
We can do nothing for Greeley and
Brown, except 80 far as the readiness
with which we accept them as the repre-
ssntatives of re- union and recon ciliation,
may influence the better class of the
people of the North to support them,
from the same high motives. We can
not give Greeley and Brown single
electoral vote, but we may determine,
perhaps. who the next Governor of
South Carolina will be. We shall, there
fore, be more actively. though not more
earnestly, interested in our local than in
the national elections. At least, we be-