hanged by the gang had it not been that the son, who recognized several of them, had managed to escape. Being afraid of the consequences if they proceeded further in their outrages, they ordered Biggerstaff and his daughter to return home and not to say anything about what had happened to them. Thirty men were subsequently tried before the United States Circuit Court for participation in the first raid upon Biggerstaff. Sixteen of them were found guilty, and eight not guilty. As to the other six cases, a nolle prosequi was entered. For participation in the second raid upon Biggerstaff and his family, while they were on the road to Charlotte, five men were arraigned. Three pleaded guilty, while a nolle prosequi was entered for the other two. As before remarked, the outrages were not all confined to the one side in politics. There were also great outrages upon the other side. The military terrorism exercised by the militia under Kirk created a very bitter feeling of irritation and alarm. Another great cause of trouble was the partisan conduct of some of the state judges. Judge Logan, who was elected in 1868, was one of these judges, against whom the bitterest feeling existed. He was an unscrupulous partisan and an incompetent judge. A petition for his removal was signed by all the leading lawyers of the North Carolina bar practicing in Charlotte. The resolutions contained in the petition declared that Judge Logan was not qualified either by learning or capacity to discharge the duties of his office; that, by reason of his incompetency, the course of justice had been impeded; that in many cases justice had been virtually denied; and that public confidence in the efficiency of the government and of the laws had been impaired. Witnesses of great respectability, when questioned in regard to the causes of the trouble in the South, expressed the opinion that the principal cause was bad government. They said that, up to the time when these reconstructed governments and constitutions were imposed upon the people, no such crimes had been committed; that from the close of the war up to 1867, affairs had been perfectly quiet in the South; and that the disturbances. were to be attributed to bad government, corrupt and incompetent officials, and evil advice to the ignorant negro population. An incendiary address, signed by the Republican members of the legislature of North Carolina in 1868, was referred to by some of the witnesses as having been productive of much mischief. One of the paragraphs of this address was in the following words: "Did it never occur to you, ye gentlemen of property, education, and characterto you, ye men, and especially ye women, who never received anything from these colored people but services, kindness, and protection, did it never occur to you that these same people, who are so very bad, will not be willing to sleep in the cold when your houses are denied them merely because they will not vote as you do; that they may not be willing to starve while they are willing to work for bread? Did it never occur to you that revenge, which is so sweet to you, may be as sweet to CAUSES OF DISCONTENT. 463 them? Hear us, if nothing else you will hear: did it never occur to you that if you kill their children with hunger, they will kill your children with fear? Did it never occur that if you good people maliciously determine that they shall have no shelter, they may determine that you shall have no shelter?" It was stated as the opinion of one of the most intelligent witnesses (Mr. Durham) that barn-burnings, rapes, and other crimes on the part of the negroes were the legitimate fruits and consequences of this paper signed by the Republican members of the legislature. Mr. Durham also explained that the influence exercised over the colored people by the Northern adventurers or "carpet-baggers" who settled or squatted there at the close of the war, was owing to the fact that the Northern people were regarded as the liberators of the colored race; while the idea was studiously inculcated among them that the white people of the South were their enemies. Mr. Durham regarded the Reconstruction acts as unwarranted and oppressive, because they disfranchised a large number of the best men of the Southern country, and because the most ignorant and superstitious negro was given the privilege of holding the highest offices of trust and profit, while such men as Governor Graham, Governor Bragg, and others in whom the whole people of North Carolina had confidence, were disfranchised. The intelligent people of the South, he said, could not look upon such treatment in any other light than as being hostile to their best interests. The crimes and disturbances of which the State of North Carolina was the theatre during the few years of the reconstruction period, are set out in painful detail in the various reports of congressional committees; but a sufficient review of them has been given here to present a fair and correct idea of the condition of society there and elsewhere at that time. The following chapter will have to do with the like subject in the other Southern Wherever these excesses appeared, they were not unlike the ghost of departed liberty. They took a grisly, horrific aspect, to deter the superstitious and defy the selfish. They were not more revolutionary than the causes which produced, and which do not justify them. states. Measures of repression and usurpation are in their very nature revolutionary. The strain to keep freemen down is sure to react. As to these secret societies in the South, history should not fail to consider the circumstances under which they arose. This unlawfulness did not appear immediately after the war. The South had accepted the arbitration of arms. It began to grow contented. Its people embraced all the conditions proposed in 1867, for their state governments. They abolished slavery, annulled the secession ordinance and the rebel debt, accepted negro suffrage, and sent representatives to Congress. Their tenders were received grudgingly and suspiciously. Then the discontent began. It dates from the repulse in Congress and the breach of faith to them in Washington. who were "they"? CHAPTER XXVI. KU-KLUX OUTRAGES.—Continued. TWO CONTESTED SOUTH CAROLINA FRAUD AND VIOLENCE IN ELECTIONS ELECTION CASES - HENCE, THE ILLUMINÉS -THE TUGEND-BUND-THE CARBONARI -THE JACOBIN CLUBS - -THE NIHILISTS - THE FENIANS - THE LOYAL LEAGUES - AND THE KU-KLUX KLANS-THE AUTHOR'S SPEECH AGAINST THE FORCE BILL. T ESTIMONY that was taken in 1868, in two contested election cases in the United States House of Representatives, exhibits the condition of affairs that existed in the State of South Carolina at that time. The contests in question were in the cases of Hoge and Reed, of the Third district, and of Wallace and Simpson, of the Fourth district. Mr. Hoge and Mr. Wallace were both Republicans. Almost as a matter of course, they obtained their seats. Evidence was presented tending to show that the two Democrats who had obtained certificates, had secured their majorities by violence and fraud. Their opponents were seated, not because they had received a majority of the votes, but on the ground that the two Democrats were ineligible, being banned by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Third district was composed of the counties of Abbeville, Anderson, Edgefield, Newberry, Lexington, Richland, and Orangeburg; and in all of these counties except the last the evidence showed that there had existed the most defiant terrorism and fraud. Several hundred men from Edgefield County had voted in Lexington County, and fifteen hundred or INTIMIDATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 465 more of the Edgefield County men had also voted the Democratic ticket in the adjacent counties. But this violation of law was a venial offense, when compared with the measures resorted to by the lawless Southern men to prevent the negroes from voting. The terrorism existing in Edgefield County was so great that no man who was not in sympathy with the dominant white element could be induced to act as commissioner of election. One commissioner was shot at and left the county, and others refused to serve. The facts in support of the charges of violence are too numerous to be stated circumstantially. The white clubs organized in the counties were secret, oathbound societies. They patrolled the county, generally undisguised. They paid domiciliary visits to the negroes and white Republicans, shooting some, whipping others, and warning all of the consequences of voting the Republican ticket. The avowed purpose of these clubs was to break up the Loyal Leagues. In order to accomplish this object, the patrol was instructed, if necessary, to shoot the leaders and active men of the Leagues. One of the patrol turned state's evidence. He confessed that he was one of three men who had orders to murder a prominent Republican named Randolph. This murder was committed about one o'clock in the day, at the railroad station, on the arrival of the train on which Randolph was a passenger. The tragedy occurred in Edgefield County. William R. Tolbert, the man who had turned state's evidence, stated that he himself and two associates fired on Randolph, who fell dead. These murderers were probably men of the lowest class of whites; but they were not more guilty than their more intelligent abettors. According to the testimony, the members of the club were sworn to obey the orders of their captain. They were instructed to find out the meeting places of the Loyal League, and to fire into them. They were to aim at their leading men. The club had special orders, at the Presidential and congressional election on the 3d of November, 1868, to be at the polls early and not to allow a negro or a Republican to vote. Testimony to the same effect was given by other witnesses. Republicans of both races were intimidated and driven from the polls by the practice of whipping, shooting, killing, and expelling them from their houses. The terrorism was so great that, although Edgefield County contained 4,200 colored voters, only 800 of them voted at that election; while the white vote was between eighteen and nineteen hundred. There was less of violence and bloodshed in Lexington County; but there, also, the Republicans were intimidated. Nine hundred Republican voters, six hundred of them colored, were deterred from attempting to vote, while on the contrary several hundred Democratic citizens of Edgefield County were permitted to vote in Lexington. In Anderson County, about half of the colored voters abstained from voting. This was in consequence of threats of expulsion from their homes. Two young men were whipped for being Republicans. Mr. Wallace, the Republican candidate for Congress in the Fourth district, testified at length as to the condition of terrorism in which the Republicans lived in his district. This district was, at that time, composed of the counties of Fairfield, Chester, York, Spartanburg, Union, Laurens, Oconee, Pickens, and Greenville. At the election in Laurens County, the Democrats formed lines around the polls. They thus kept off many of the negroes who would have voted; while some Republican negroes voted the Democratic ticket, from fear of punishment or of expulsion from their homes. It was testified that in Pickens County armed bands rode about through the country every night for over a week previous to the election. They thus intimidated the colored people and prevented them, as well as many white people, from voting. Outside the polls, parties opened the tickets and took down the names of all persons who voted the Republican ticket; while those who voted the Democratic ticket were given certificates by which they could obtain employment. In fact, if this evidence be credible, even in the least degree, the election was carried by fraud and intimidation. The enforcement of the Reconstruction acts was the chief provocation to the outrages perpetrated by the white people upon the blacks. The enfranchisement of the negroes was resented by those who for generations had been accustomed to treat them as chattels. In reference to South Carolina, the report of the joint select committee of the two houses of Congress of 1872 contains such a mass of revolting details that one cannot decide where to begin their citation or where to stop. Murders, or attempts to murder, are numerous. Whippings are without number. Probably the most cruel and cowardly of these last was the whipping of Elias Hill. He was a colored man who had, from infancy, been dwarfed in legs and arms. He was unable to use either. But he possessed an intelligent mind; had learned to read; and had acquired an unusual amount of knowledge for one in his circumstances. He was a Baptist preacher. He was highly respected for his upright character. He was eminently religious, and was greatly revered by the people of his own race. It was on this ground that he was visited by the Ku-Klux, brutally beaten, and dragged from his house, into the yard, where he was left in the cold at night, unable to walk or crawl. After the fiends had left, his sister brought him into the house. Although this man was a Republican, his testimony gave evidence of the mildness and Christian forbearance of his character, as well as his freedom from ill-will toward the white race. In answer to a question as to his feeling toward the whites, he replied that he had good-will, love, and affection toward them; but that he feared them. He said that he had never made the wrongs and cruelties inflicted by white people on his race the subject of his sermons; but that he preached the gospel onlyrepentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. |