The Daily Phoenix

A Good Witness—Read the Testimony.

The New York Nation, reviewing the situation in the South, holds that there is no doubt but the interests of civilization and of good government in this quarter are suffering deeply, and "may suffer irretrievably, if the present regime be protracted much longer." The Nation, which, be it understood, is a Republican journal of wide influence, says:

"Very recently, business men of the highest character, both from this city and from Boston, have been examining the state of things there with reference to investments, both for themselves and their friends, and of course one of the very first things to which their attention was turned was the government, for government means taxation, and on the manner and amount and application of taxation depend the rate of profits, the prospects of immigration, and the probability of internal improvements. No man will willingly invest much capital in a State whose revenues he has reason to believe will be squandered, or credit destroyed, or whose legislation cannot be depended on for a reasonable degree of uniformity and honesty. Now the reports of these gentlemen—and the two we have in our eye have been ardent Republicans and supporters of the reconstruction policy of Congress, and do not believe any other policy was possible or desirable—describe things as being nearly as bad as bad can be. The effect on the freedman of the spectacle of large bodies of his fellows in a state of the grossest ignorance put suddenly in possession of the government of great, civilized and wealthy communities is, of course, as demoralizing as the sudden discovery of a parcel of diamonds, and just as likely to turn his mind away from steady industry, and to destroy his faith in the political value of knowledge. But this is not the worst of it. Their management of the State funds has been such, and is such, as to endanger American credit everywhere, to frighten away capital, and make general bankruptcy at some not very distant day by no means improbable. Moreover, no society was ever long subjected to such a regime without suffering in its very vitals, without finding the stock of honor, truth, decency and patriotism, on which it has to draw every now and then to carry it through exciting times, greatly and perhaps fatally diminished."

"The remedy for all this is to pass an act of general amnesty, and leave every community to its natural action. Let whatever there is of intelligence in it resume its natural weight. It is as much the interest of the negro as of the white man—indeed, far more the interest of the negro than of the white man—that the States should be well governed, and most of the political talent and experience is in the hands of white men who are either disfranchised themselves, or so disgusted by the disfranchisement of their friends, that they will take no part at present in political affairs. No closing of the reconstruction process will be safe or real which does not give them their natural influence on the Government; artificial influence they have lost forever; but of the other it is an offence against civilization to deprive them."