The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1872-08-10
S. G..
Saturday Morning, August 10, 1872.
For President of the United Stotes.
HORACE GREELEY. OF New York.
For Vice President
Il. GRATZ BROWN, OF Missouri.
Tho Duty or Colered Voters.

observe the current and drift OF pub
lilo opinion among the colored people in
this and other States of the South. We
have noticed that, with hero and there
an exception, they seem to adhere tena-
ciously to Grant. and ignore the claims
of Horace Greeley to their support. No
colored public man in this State has
raised his voice in his favor. This una
nimity of feeling against him, in the
face of his lifelong record, is not in the
natural order of things, and is far from
being creditable to the race. It is as
snredly strange, in view of the certain
knowledge which they possess of the
great, the almost unparalleled services
which Greeley has rendered to their
cause. Among the public men of the
North who have followed in the wake of
Wilberforce and Clarkson, Greeley has
stood for more than thirty years amongst
the foremost in zeal, and in power and
efficiency, primus inter pares. Sumner
has delivered clever harangues, William
Lloyd Garrison has skillfully managed
the Anti-Slavery Society, and Gerritt
Smith has thrown the weight OF good
character and honest Intentions into the
scale OF the black man, tenderly nursing
the flame OF Abolitionism, until it grew
to be consuming fire. But Greeley's
fiery utterances and forcible argumenta-
ton in the Tribune, his line upon line
and precept upon precept, all bound to-
~gether by logical consistency and unim-
6 peaohable sincerity, interfused with fer
vid feeling and sustained by concurrent
opinion from every quarter. constitute
! work fully the equal of that Of the trio
advocates just mentioned put
'together. In this work, he has never
faltered nor wavered. From frat to
last. it has worn the strong characters.
tics Of stability and oonstancy.
Whatever credit may be claimed for
the liberation of the slaves of the South
is thus due in larger degree to Horace
: Greeley than to any other man. And
the same may be said with equal truth
of the part he has taken in procuring
the passage by Congress of the constitu-
Monal amendments which secure the CO.
2ored people in their civil and political
rights. In the maintenance of his posi-
tions, he has been constant in season
and out of season, equally vigilant and
bold, and at last triumphantly success
full. This has been his work, and this
the fruit of his labors. It cannot be
gainsaid. It stands before you. Look
at it. It is an enduring column.
Now, since the world began, nothing
has been so much insisted on among
men Of any thought and any moral ele-
walton as gratitude for favors conferred.
and readiners to requite them. No duty
is considered so indispensable among
upright and honorable men. Are we
not, says an ancient moralist, to initiate
those fertile fields which yield far more
than they have received? How much
nobler would this be than to press for.
ward, as is too often done, to confer
services upon those from whom much is
expected in return. Such persons the
cynical Swift had in view in his famous
definition Of gratitude rs lively sense
of favors to come.
We trust that some of our leading
colored men-men capable of consider
ing things in the light of duty as we'll as
of enlightened interest-will seriously
revolve the problem which we are endea-
voring to place before them. Let them
consider what is their duty in general,
and in particular what it is towards
Horace Greeley, anil let them remember
that no man may safely disregard or
contemn solemn duty. It is an offence
which mankind will punish in them and
their descendants. for all men detest
those who are forgetful of benefits. And
the eyes Of mankind are upon them.
Men look with deep interest to see what
their conduct will be in the exalted posi-.
'tion to which, in the providence OF God,