The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1872-12-18
u. s. @.
Wednesday Morning, December l8. 70.
DIR tho Shackles-Glve Us Goo<
Governme emit. ,s


Throw or tho shackles-Glve Us Good
Government.
When society has been shaken to its
utmost depths, as in civil war and social
revolution, its agitations are long in
settling down. Time alone can bring
order out of chaos and heal the wounds
which strife has made. At the close OF
the war we we're left in condition the
very opposite of that we were in at its
beginning. We had passed from one
extreme Of oontentment and happiness
to another of indigence and distress.
In every household was grief and una
vailing sorrow. in, every heart despair, at
every hearth the memories of great
prosperity and the forebodings of an
uncertain and dark future. But soon
the manhood OF our people rallied, and
they addressed themselves with energy
to the duties and demands of the hour.
They felt that they had q country still.
With ohastened spirit they recognized
that the day Of small things had come.
SProprietors who had been shorn of their
estates, capitalists who had nothing left
and no field to operate in, quietly de-
soended from their afauenoe. They
oneerfully, without repining, accepted
the reduced condition, to which, in the
providence of God, they had been
brought. It was reverently confessed,
as it WIS manifestly seen, that He who
gives also takeu away. As there was
movement down, so there was one up
wards. Men who had been held to in
voluntary service, passed into the higher
position of independent iaborers and
freeholders. Accompanying this change
there was natural JOY and satisfaction;
but they were kept within decorous
bounds. The rich became poor, men of
leisure became active and busy, the
slave became free, and general stir and
excitement pervaded our whole society;
but the transition each way was without
serious oonvulsion, and with but slight
collision between classes. SO strong and
so beneacent are the natural laws which
govern capital and labor, and 80 surely
do they moline to adjust themselves on
satisfactory basis. Things tend to
come to proper equipoise. Capital is
instinotively impelled to seek the ad-
vantages Of union with labor. and labor
responds just as heartily to the call of
capital. Obeying this law, the relations
of capital and labor in this State have
been tolerably agreeable, and moderately
profitable to both parties since the close
of the war.
Escaping the dangers which were most
threatening and most to be apprehended,
the State has been brought to the verge
OF disgrace and bankruptcy by the mise
rable government which has been erected
over it. Circumstances, and perhaps q
want of foresight on the part of the
substantial people of the State, favored
most unmitigated set Of thieves in get
ting possession and control of things.
They were mostly from abroad, and
hangerson Of the victorious army. They
were put forward aud sustained by the
Freedmen's Bureau, and had the United
States Government at their back, and
confidently went forward glorying in it's
support and countenance. With all
these advantages in their favor, they
safely organized for plunder. They en-
trenched themselves in the strongholds
Of the State Government and authority.
They seduced large element Of popu-
lar suffrage and favor to their side. The
laborers. mostly black, who had made
agreeable terms with landowners and
employees, unfortunately for themselves
and those with whose fortunes they we're
linked, became the willing tools and sub.
servient voters of this thieving GLASS.
Backed by the General Government,
holding the positions of power and in
duenco, and sustained by the great mass
of the voters Of the State, they have had
everything their own wey, and gone on
swimmingly. But to-day we look upon
the wreck Of all pnhlio inetitutions we