The Daily Phoenix

COLUMBIA, S.C.
Saturday Morning, June 10, 1871.

"And Thou too, O: Brite Tho'e World"

We agree, with our contemporary of the Wilmington Journal, in its strictures upon the tone of temper recently exhibited by the New York World in its reference to ex-President Davis. The World should bear in mind, that when it undertakes to relieve the Democratic party of any responsibility for the political tenets and policy of Mr. Davis, it is not either wise or becoming for it to imitate the Radical press in their usual vituperation of the South, and disregard of Southern sensibilities. The Journal says:

We beg leave, also, to suggest whether the contrast afforded by the utterances of such Republicans as General Sherman, Senator Schurz, and Senator Trumbull, and others, when placed side by side with the following from the New York World, will have a tendency to attract Southern men to the candidate supported and endorsed by the World:

"There is a similarity in one point between the secessionists of this country, under Jefferson Davis, and the Communists of Paris, under their hydra-headed leadership. Both misused, disgraced, and finally desecrated a good idea.

"The creed which Southern nullifiers perverted beyond recognition, and then dishonored by rebellion, was that of Jefferson, Madison, and Sam Adams."

Speech is free in this country for poets and orators of the lost cause, but they can have no influence or control in shaping the issues of 1872, or onward, till by baptism and good works, they show they have put away forever the dead and dismal past, and submitted to the discipline of the party.

"Jefferson Davis, and his abettors, promoted a condition of things among the ruling politicians of the South which precipitated the rebellion."

In our nostrils, the lost cause is a stench, and we seek to bury it out of our sight.

It is not grateful to our feelings now, no matter what our opinions of him may have been, to hear Jefferson Davis spoken of by our friend, as 'a bankrupt politician, a blundering old man,' a false prophet; who, on former occasions, egregiously deceived and misled the Southern people to their ruin. We cannot help thinking Mr. Davis has been unfortunate in the use of certain expressions recently uttered, or rather, we regret that he has not maintained an unbroken silence on political subjects, for the reason that nothing he could say could, by the plainest English, be made so plain as not to be misrepresented and perverted to the damage of the South; but our respect for him is too great, and our remembrance of his past services too fresh, too grateful, and too reverential, to hear him vilified without resentment.

It is not soothing to the feelings of Southern men to be likened to such savages as the Communists of Paris, at whose brutalities and atrocities the world is even now shuddering with horror. Southern men are not yet prepared to hear with patience, from their friends, at least, that they are rebels, and responsible for the late war. In the nostrils of Southern men, the lost cause, as they understand it, has not yet become a stench, nor have they yet lost that instinct of humanity, whether savage or civilized, that prevents men, though they may have put their dead out of sight, from quietly hearing them reviled and insulted. We indeed bury our dead, but the idea of declaring, or allowing others in our presence to declare, that they are a stench in our nostrils, is simply revolting. As free men, possessing the right of suffrage, we cannot quietly submit to be told by those who ask our suffrage, and who cannot succeed without it, that we can have no influence or control in shaping the issues of 1872, or onward, until we have complied with conditions they desire to impose. If we are to take no part in shaping the issues of 1872, it must be for the reason that we decline to appear in the National Democratic councils, and not because we are excluded therefrom by our Northern brethren. We approve the new departure, but we utterly repudiate the interpretation sought to be given to it by the World.