The Daily Phoenix

Greeley and Grant.

I propose, Messrs. Editors, to institute a comparison between these two candidates for the Presidency. Greeley is admitted to be a man of truth, and one who has never deceived his friends or foes. Grant was convicted of lying by the whole of President Johnson's Cabinet! It is a matter of record. In his explanation about accepting the temporary appointment of Secretary of the War Department, he openly avows his treachery, base treachery, to his chief! Such conduct would have dishonored a private gentleman in any society.

Greeley has always been a sober man. Grant was a disgraced drunkard before the war, and had to resign his commission in the army to keep from being cashiered!

Greeley has shown himself by his speeches and writings to be a man of talent and ability. Grant has never written anything that evinced the least ability, and he has never been able to make a speech at all. During the war, he displayed no military genius whatever, and after sacrificing 120,000 men, twice General Lee's whole force, he conquered only by an overwhelming force still left under his command.

Greeley is in favor of the constitutional rights of the States being respected, and will sacredly guard and protect them. Grant, throughout his whole administration, has disregarded the rights of the Southern States, and trampled them in the dust!

Greeley is a civilian and a statesman, and will appeal to the civil authorities for the enforcement of the laws. Grant is a successful military chieftain, confesses in his inaugural that he "has no policy," or, in other words, is no statesman; and he has set all law at defiance for the last four years, and governed the South by military force! He has filled the country with his troops, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, had innocent men arrested at the hour of mid-night, without warrant, and hurried off to jail. All this done in time of profound peace, when the civil authorities were abundantly able to enforce the law.

Greeley is admitted by all to be an honest man, governed by principles, and if elected President, will appoint none but honest men to office. Grant has taken bribes, under the name of gifts, of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and appointed the givers to the highest offices in the Government. His first Secretary of the Treasury made him a present of $50,000 and was appointed to office. His Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of State did the same thing. Many others might be named. Lord Bacon, "the wisest, greatest of men," was disgraced and impeached for taking gifts whilst Lord Chancellor, though in every instance he decided the law correctly. For this taking of gifts from parties in court, England's great poet pronounced him the basest of mankind.

Grant has been surrounded by official rogues and defaulters from the time he went into office. He has protected them. If Greeley is elected, it will strike terror into the ranks of the roguish official carpet-baggers, scalawags and traitors in South Carolina. They will flee the State with their ill-gotten gains, as rats leaving a burning house. But if Grant is re-elected, they will go on stealing, till there is nothing left in the State to steal. His bayonets will protect them, and the negroes will be told again if they don't vote for them, they will be thrown back into slavery.

Greeley was in favor of amnesty at the close of the war, and wished "the North and South to shake hands over the grave of slavery." Grant and his partisans have denied to the wisest and best men in the Southern States the right of holding office ever since the war closed, till it was forced out of them by the nomination of Greeley.

Greeley was for peace after the surrender of Lee, and magnanimity on the part of the conquerors. Grant hypocritically cried out, "Let us have peace," whilst he was marching his standing armies over the country, committing outrages on peaceful citizens and stirring up strife and rebellion.

All the issues on which Greeley opposed the South for the last thirty years, are dead and buried. There is now no antagonism between him and us. But the issues which separate us from Grant are living issues, and will continue to live as long as he remains in the Presidency.

If Greeley is elected, he will restore the Government to Republican principles and constitutional rights, and put down corruption and dishonesty. If Grant is elected, he will continue his military despotism and play the tyrant on a grand scale.

If Greeley is elected, he will live at the seat of Government and attend to his high and responsible trusts. But Grant will, if re-elected, take up his abode at some watering place in the summer season, and trot his fast horses, as he has been doing for some years past, leaving all the duties of President to be discharged by subordinates, or be neglected entirely.

Greeley will not do, it is hoped, as Grant has done—appoint all of his own and wife's kindred to fat offices, without regard to their fitness or competency. General Washington and Mr. Jefferson thought this sort of nepotism infamous, and refused to appoint their relations. Grant had no such notions of honor and propriety about him.

Now, can any true-hearted Southern man, with intellect above that of an idiot, hesitate which to choose, unless he is looking to Grant or the Radical party for office, and disregards the true interest of his oppressed and ruined country? Greeley is an honest man, a man of ability and principle, the friend of the South and the friend of the Constitution and rights of the States. Grant takes bribes; has around him a corrupt and emboldened set of rogues, scoundrels and defaulters, whom he retains in office, and has sustained by his bayonets the rotten regime now ruling in South Carolina, which has robbed and squandered $15,000,000 or $20,000,000 of public moneys, and increased our taxes five-fold! Four years of Grant's administration has brought all these evils upon us. Do we not wish a change? Can we survive four years longer under these burdens?

If there is any gratitude in the breast of a colored man, and he has intelligence enough to know that Greeley has done more for his emancipation and right of suffrage than any other man in America, he will choose him in preference to Grant, who, up to the war, was a Democrat and a pro-slavery man, voting for James Buchanan for President of the United States. Should the colored people now repudiate their old friend Greeley, and take up Grant, the opponent of their emancipation, it will show, says Judge Davis, that they are unfit to exercise the right of suffrage. I am sure they would not do so, but for the malign influence of the carpet-baggers and office seekers, and office-holders.

B. F. PERRY.