man in our State was bold enough to seek the favor of the people except upon the most explicit pledges to remove our present abuses. If we who are here to-day shall fail in our duty, others more honest and capable will be called to our places. Through us or through others freedom and justice will bear sway in South Carolina.

I enter upon my duties as Governor with a just sense, as I hope, of my own want of such wisdom and experience as the position demands. I shall need the friendly aid not only of my political associates but of all men who love our State.

We must move forward and upward to better things. In performing my part of this work the highest favor I ask, next to the Divine favor, which I now invoke, is that no man will urge me to do an act inconsistent with the principles and pledges upon which the people have intrusted us with our present powers.

From the Governor's exposure of the State finances, it appears that during the six years from 1868 to 1874-the period of the Scott and Moses administrations,-the expenditures of public funds for the single item of executive contingent expenses amounted to $376,832.74. Another fact which appears is that, during the same period, the expenditures for the Legislature-that is, merely the per-diem salary and mileage of members, pay of employés, cost of stationery, etc.—were $2,147,430.97, the average cost of each session being $320,405.16. Also, that besides these extraordinary amounts which had been paid on account of legislative expenses, so called, there were then outstanding in the community and unpaid, certificates, or bills payable for legislative expenses, to the amount of $192,275.15.

The cost of the permanent and current legislative printing for the same period was $843,073.59. With $174,696.66, the cost of printing the statutes in newspapers, added, the total cost of public printing for this period was $918,629.86. It appears, also, that the existing unpaid deficiencies of the two preceding years (1873-74) were over $575,000, together with a class of outstanding indebtedness called "certificates of indebtedness," issued in payment of current expenses, amounting to $231,996, with a further authorized issue of $340,000.

In addition, therefore, to the increase of the public bonded. debt during six years by thirteen million dollars, there was a further increase in the form of floating indebtedness, of nearly or quite one million dollars. The correction of this habit of

reckless extravagance was one of the reforms now to be vigorously undertaken, and he, upon whom the duty of leadership in the work had been imposed knew that wounds, such as had been inflicted upon the prosperity and credit of this State, could not be healed without being fearlessly probed and explored.'

Although Governor Chamberlain was elected under circumstances which might have warranted some discussion of the relations of the races, if not of the spirit of parties, in South Carolina, his Address contained no word which could be construed as an evidence of bitterness or partisanship. The Chief Magistrate recognized no difference, or reasons of differ ence, between any citizens, who sought with one purpose the things that would make for the establishment on firm foundations of the honor and prosperity of the commonwealth. When, in his first message to Congress, President Arthur made no reference to what had been known as "the Southern question," and by this significant silence implied that thenceforth all sections of the country should be regarded as loyal, having a common sentiment of nationality and a common interest in the general welfare, it was justly regarded as an evidence of wise statesmanship. In this wisdom he was anticipated by Governor Chamberlain under circumstances more provocative of indulgence in criticism and vindication.

1 Vulnera nisi tacta tractataque sanari non possunt.—Livy.

Reception of the Inaugural Address-The Effect upon Public Opinion, North and South, and upon the People of South Carolina-Comments of the Charleston News and Courier, Harper's Weekly, The Nation, and Other Journals.

O say that Governor Chamberlain's first official utterance

Tsurprised the people of the State and the country, hardly

does justice to the sentiment generally expressed. Although it was as far as possible from a sentimental address, but, on the contrary, was a plain, businesslike statement of the affairs of the State and, in its views and recommendations, was in strict accordance with the platform of his party and his own speeches before election, it attracted the attention of the country in a remarkable manner, and in South Carolina caused a profound sensation. For the first time, since the reorganization of the State Government, a Governor appeared able to know and unafraid to reveal to the uttermost both the facts and the causes of the evils under which the community labored, and to have an earnest intention of eradicating them. Without dissimulation and without extravagance he had portrayed the unfortunate condition of the State, the result in large part of causes for which his own party was responsible, the continuance of which he earnestly, even confidently, declared his purpose of preventing. In its spirit and temper, as well as in its substance, the Address was a different document from any thing that had before emanated from the Republican party in South Carolina, or in any Southern State, an indication of that rare phenomenon in any State-a party leader more concerned with the offences of his own supporters against honor and sound policy than with the misdoing of his opponents. It afforded the spectacle of a politician acting as if he believed parties should somewhat regard that most difficult and most ignored of all rules of conduct, "First

cast out the beam out of thine own eye." No wonder there was amazement everywhere.

The "white man's party" in the State hailed the Address with satisfaction, because it promised at least an effort to check the extravagance and demoralization which had become oppressive. They had found no fault with the Governor's professions and pledges heretofore, except that, with their experience of his party's conduct, ante-election professions of reform could not be trusted. They knew that he was by conviction, as well as by association and practice, an ardent supporter of the doctrine of equal rights; that he believed the freedmen capable of sharing on equal terms the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. They knew, also, that he was a Republican, that the Republican party in South Carolina, whatever might be the fact in the Northern States, contained a vast body of ignorance whose official representatives, with few exceptions, had been not only incompetent but venal, and they did not believe that any officer dependent upon that party would dare to rebuke or obstruct the corrupted inclinations of its local leaders. Therefore when this Governor, upon assuming the duties of his office, showed that he did not consider his election the complete triumph of reform, but, on the contrary, held that the real work was yet to be begun, and when he advanced a definite programme of aims and methods in which no element of insincerity or weakness appeared, they began to have hope that something would be effected. To them the Inaugural Address was an unexpected assurance of good intentions, and their representative journals commended it with heartiness, even while they still distrusted its author's firmness and fortitude.

It had a similar happy effect upon that portion of the people in the Northern States in whom the monstrous misgovernment of South Carolina had produced a wish for the overthrow of the party in power. Of course the Northern Democrats desired the defeat of the Republicans in South Carolina as a matter of partisan advantage, and during this administration they were, as a rule, far less just in their judgment of his actions than the Democrats of his own and other Southern States. But a large section of the Republican party in the North, represented by journals

of high character and wide influence, had believed the demoralization of the party in that State so deep, complete, and scandalous, that it was incapable of reformation unless deprived of power and opportunity. Having little knowledge of the Republican candidate, except what was gathered from South Carolina papers, which, during the election canvass, did not acknowledge that he was any better than, or different from, the worst of his supporters, they had wished for his defeat, and they regretted his election as a new lease of power to the combination of cunning knaves with ignorant freedmen by which the South. had been plundered, and their party everywhere subjected to taint and shame. To them the new Governor's Inaugural Address was a welcome surprise, kindling a hope that at last a man had appeared who would do something to redeem the name " carpetbagger" from the reproach which had attached to it, not without good reason.

On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that a large proportion of the party that had supported Governor Chamberlain at the polls, including most of those who had been accomplices in the iniquity of the former administrations, were not less amazed, although their emotion was of another cast. That candidates and officials should profess devotion to economy, and justice, and reform, was nothing new. It had come to be understood among them that this was the proper thing to do, an expected hypocrisy, and in the art of it they were well versed. But there was in this Address a severely practical application of what they considered only the cant of politics, a deep-toned sincerity, an absence of congratulation and flattery, a suggestion of duty and labor and sacrifice, altogether so different from any thing before known of their party leaders, that they were at a loss what to think of it or of its author. They felt that he was committing himself too freely and too far; that he did not remember that he and they had secured their election, and that the time for exalting virtue and reiterating promises had gone by. Whether he was in earnest or only more audacious than themselves in insincerity, they were at first doubtful; but if he was not in earnest he was indiscreet, and if he was in earnest, he would have to be fought and put down, or their schemes of self