The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1872-10-04
OutraRes nIado to Order.


with accounts of outrages upon the CO.
lored people by the Southern whites.
The stories are very bad, and are sand.
wiohed with accounts of Ku Klux den.
relations, and sprinkled in here and
there with details of murder. Unoues-
tlonably, some of these accounts NAV be
founded upon facts, as the novelists saw.
but it is next to impossible to find tie
original atom which served al the basis
or mountain of assertion. We have
taken pains to investigate some of the
cases reported to fire the Northern heart.
and in every instance thus fur have
found that the facts bore about the same
relations to the tale founded upon them
as the incidents picked out Of police
report bear to one of Sylvanus Cobb's
novels, or the knee-bone of an unknown
bird bears to the stuffed image in the
museum. The fuct that these papers
told OF no such outrages six months ago
ls exceedingly suspicious. It is impossi-
BILE to believe that human nature in the
Southern States has undergone a total
transformation in twelve weeks. Then
1t was the fashion to represent that Gen.
Grants policy of coercion had worked so
admirably that negro's life and hut
were safer in the Carolinas than in New
York. Now, when the demand for re-
conciliation rises from 5000. 600 voters,
we are told that the Southern States are
covered with violence and dripping with
blood. There is something suspicious
IN facts that accommodate themselves 80
nicely to the exigencies of partisan
campaign.
Admit that there are occasional in.
stances OF injustice and wrong on the
part OF the white people of the South
toward The negro population. So there
are similar instances in Philadelphia,
Chicago and New York. We must bear
In mind that the white people of the
South often suffer terrible provocations
from the negroes, of which we know
next to nothing. The latter are general
~ Ignorant, often indolent, and some-
times lawless, insulting and violent.
They are Intoxicated with their new
found freedom, and mistake liberty for
license. Even the best of them are none
too good. Mr.. Stearns, missionary and
planter, and Grant man, too, saws. in
his recently published book, that the de-
predations. and lawlessness, and namo.
less vices, and crimes the negroes are
addicted to-, are exceedingly exasperat-
ing. He tells US that even 1.-THE so-calIed
saints on my plantation were invariably
the worst people I had; more dishonest,
disobedient. lazy, less Interested in edu-
cation, and in every other good thing,
than those they factiously termed Sinner
men," And he adds that ''to see race
30 thoroughly demented as to call insane
ceilings and violent oontorticns of BODY,
totally disconnected from any kind of an
idea, the Christian religion, is melan.
choly indeed" It is only necessary to
look at the matter calmly and dispassion-
ately, without partisan prejudice or in.
tent. to see that the white people of the
South occupy peculiarly difficult and
trying position; and if they sometimes
say aud do what we who know nothing
OF their provocations cannot approve,
we must remember that while they do
not claim to be saints, not every negro
as an angel in ebony, as has been repre-.
sented IN fiction and pictured to North
ern fancy. That there should be more
or less of irritation and occasional acts
OF violence is not only natural, but as
inevitable as the friction between the ma
tive and foreign population Of our great
cities, and the occasional crimes we de.
plore and do our best to prevent.
The question to be considered is not
exactly how much blame attaches to one
party and how much to the other. in
these reported but generally fictitious
"outrsges," manufactured to serve the
purposes Of the campaign; undoubtedly
in every instance Of real violence the
blame must be divided between the two
parties. The other day we were told Of
an outrage upon negroes in Pittsburgh: :
but when the facts came limping along
after the rumor, it was proved that the
negroes. excited by the exasperating
sentiments and appeals of political ora
tors OF the Wendell Phillips school, had
turiously attacked u procession of Gree.
ley men, who were obliged to fight in
self.defence for their lives. The cues
tion for statesmanship and philanthropy
to consider is, what can be done to 70.
concile these races to each other, and
render outrages of all kinds impossible?
How shal! the white people and the CO.
lored. who must live together in the
Southern States. be united in spirit, in
terest and aim? How shall both classss
be penetrated with respect for each
other, and regard for the laws, the order
OF society, and the general interests of
the State and clviization2 These are
the real aud urgent questions for us to
consider: and these ars the prohlnpov Tho