AMERICA.

Evening Post, Issue 275, 26 December 1865, Page 2

AMERICA.

A delegation from South Carolina had an interview with President Johnson. Governor M'Gratb presented a memorial on behalf of Mr. Davis. Mr. Johnson replied that pardons must be proceeded with gradually, and an effort made to execute the law. If treason had been committed! it ought to be determined by the highest tribunal, even if clemency should come afterwards. There was neither malice nor prejudice in carrying out that duty, and no disposition existed for persecution or thirst for blood. Expressions of mutual confidence passed between the President and the delegation. In an address to a regiment of returned negro soldiers to Washington, President Johnson informed them that "liberty" mtant freedom to work and to enjoy the produce of their labour, and that, now that they were returning to the avocations of peace, they must evince their fitness to enjoy that freedom, tie added, that the problem was about to be solved whether four millions of their race, having all the prejudices of the whites to contend against, could mjngle harmoniously and congruously in the social system of the country, or if it would become necessary to set them apart as a separate and distinct people. In conclusion, he urged them to { prove the possibility of the former by controlling their passions and improving and judiciously employing their intellectual and physical powers.