The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1872-07-25
Tho Herald on Boutwcll's Speech in
North Carolina,


after speaking in favorable terms Of the
speech of Senator Wilson, gives Bout
we'll broadside, as follows:
Senator Wilson deserves special credit
for the courteous tone of his speech to.
ward the opposing candidates and parties,
as we'll as for the moderation with which
he appealed to the colored voters for
support. In following the admirable ex-
ample set by August Belmont and Sena-
tor Doolittle, in the Baltimore Conven
ton, the Republican candidate for the
Vice-Presidency has administered q re-
buke to those orators and Journalists on
the regular Republican side who have in.
jured the cause of their own friends by
the violence of their personal abuse of
Greeley and his supporters. The open
ing speech of Secretary Boutwell,, at
Greensboro, on Wednesday last, was
altogether of different character.
Apart from its review Of the financial
policy OF the Administration, it was, in
its political aspect, dangerous and rep
rehensible effort to array the Southern
blacks against their white felow-citizens,
and to scatter the seeds of distrust,
hatred and revenge broadcast over tue
South. The Secretary of the Treasury
denounced and spurned the proposition
that the people of the Northern and
Southern Stntes-the men who had
fought the battles of the Confederacy,
under the banners of Lee and Stonewall
Jackson, and the mon who had marched
to victory under the lead of Sheridan
and Grant-shall now clasp hands across
the bloody chasm made by the war, and
bury forever the bitter memories of the
past. No; rather let us keep alive the
animosities and hatreds that led to the
rebellion, until the chasm shall be filed,
it may be, with the mangled victims of
more cruel war-a war of races.
Slavery, says Secretary Boutwell,, was
the cause Of this ''deep, dark and por-
tentous chasm," and injustice is the es-
sential characteristic of slavery. He re-
fuses to recognize the fact that slavery is
dead; that it can never again be revived
in the United States while tho world
continues; that the Southern people, one
and all. accept the results of the war:
that the white citizens of the South ask
only to be allowed to live in peace, to
repair their shattered fortunes, to recon
struct their desolated homes, and to place
their States once again on the road to
prosperity and happiness. He sees in
the solid vote of the blacks, ignorant,
idle and vicious though majority OF
them undoubtedly are, u prospect of se-
curing the Southern States for the Ad.
ministration Of which he is q member,
and 80 he tells the negroes of North Ca
rolina that it must still be war between
them and their white fellow citizens; and
he pours into their credulous ears the
insidious poison of suspicion. If you
are wise, he says in substance to the
black crowd he harangues, you will never
trust your liberties and immunities to
your old masters, for whenever they OBJ
tain the power, if they cannot destroy
the former, they will deny you the latter.
Their professions may be fair, but their
hearts are false; and if you would pro-
tect yourselves, your cry must be no
peace with such oppressors. Clasp
hands across the bloody chasm? No;
rather fill it up with more blood and with
the corpses of men, women and children,
whose white skins point them out as
your natural enemies. We do Secretary
Boutwell, no injustice in this interpreta-
ton OF his unfortunate speech. It will
bear no other. His address is an effort
to excite the worst passions OF an igno-
rant and violent people; to array race
against race; to persuade the negroes
that the white Democrats of the South
are their mortal enemies; to revive the
deadly animosities of slavery when
slavery itself has perished; to open
afresh the wounds made by the war when
the country is atpeace. If the language
used by the Secretary is less brutal and
coarse than the ideas it conveys, the
talent displayed in his rhetoric only rem
ders the offence against humanity the
more uppar lonable.
@The record of the President proves
that he can have nothing but detcsta-
tion for the policy advocated by his
Secretary of the Treasury. When Gen.
Grant drew his sword for his country,
he declared that it should strike on the
side OF the South, if he could believe
that the war was waged for the abolition
of slavery. When the brave soldiers OF
Gen. Lee laid down their arms and lay
helplessly at the mercy of the Union
troops, Gen. Grant accorded them terms
Of peace fitting for men who had fought
80 gallantly, although in bad cause.
When the sneaking politicians who had
kept their skins whole during the war
sought after its close to perseoute Gen.
Lee, Grants voice was raised in indip-