The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1872-05-15
s. G.
Wednesday Morning, May ID, 1879.
mr.. sumner and civil RIGHTS.

Mr.. Sumner and Civil Rights.
Ills difficult to see what rational pur.
pose Mr.. Sumner has in view by bis
continued defeat of the amnesty bill by
saddling it with his civil rights amend
ment. It looks very much as if he sin
ecerely favored neither civil rights nor
amnesty. though he claims to be the
champion Of the former, and not indis-
posed to grant the latter. There is re-
quired under the fourteenth amendment
a two-thirds vote OF Congress to pass
measure relieving disfranchised South
erners Of their political disabilities,
while for Mr.. Summers pet civil rights
project, a simple majority would suffice
to make it o law. What is the sense,
then, in tacking civil rights on as a rider
to amnesty, giving both an additional
load to carry, and ending, as it has re-
peatedly done, in the defeat of both
measures? Alone and unentrammeled
by the other, we are inclined to believe
that the amnesty bill would receive its
requisite two-thirds vote, and the civil
rights bill be sustained by the simple
majority which is necessary for its pass
age. Mr.. Sumner, by his foolish course,
thwarts his own professed purposes; or.
in case we are mistaken about majority
OF Congress favoring the civil rights bill,
he is taking ground which is equally un-
tenable. in his endeavor to force an
obnoxious measure on mis- brother-repre-
sentatives, and thus, too, defeating an
other &c: CT legislation which he conours
with them in thinking advisable. This
is the part Of an obstinate ass, and
scarcely accords with Mr.. Summers g repu-
tation as frat class New England
statesman. We in South Carolina would
not go into ecstasies ever the passage of
the amnesty bill, nor would we be
lamentably affected by the success OF the
supplementary civil rights bill.
Amnesty is only valuable to us as it
evinoes q returning sense of Justice to
us and an acknowledgment of our rights
by the North. It would mark an era Of
renewed confidence and friendship, and
its incidental influences in that way
would. doubtless, prove beneficial to the
South. But it has no power to give us
xelief from the curses that reconstruction
has brought upon us. If we were in the
condition that Missouri was when Gratz
Brown burst the political shackles off
80. 1000 voters. amnest- might ol ,nge
the character OF the State Government
of South Carolina as effeotually and as
benefcially as the Liberal Republic
movement did that OF Missouri .oh,
however, is not the case. . single
man more will vote ,oulh Carolina
after amnesty is accorded than vote to-
day. Therefore, we say that amnesty
will work no practical benefit to South
Carolina.
As to the civil rights OF the black peo-
pie, they enjoy them to day in South
Carolina to the full extent of their white
Iellow.oitizens, if not in greater degree.
They do not frequent our hotels, but. il
we are not mistaken. they have as full
legal right to do so as legislation can
give. That they do not avail themselves
OF it is, in great measure, ewing 20
their good sense and self-respeot, which
prevents them from intruding unneoes-
sarily where their presence would give
offence. But they do go to places of
public amusement, and whenever they
choose to do it, pay for .and receive first
class passage on our railroads and other
public conveyances.
This doesn't work half 30 badly rs
one having holy horror of African con-
tiguity would expect. At any rate, it
isn't for Us to grieve too sorely over the
extending to Sambo the same rights in |
other States of the Union which he en-
joys here.
We do not think the subject proper
one for legislation. but it had better be
aoted upon and ended once and forever,
than continually kept before the public
mind al a aOnrca NJ ;r.;tox: