Answer. No, sir. He is popular in his neighborhood among the negroes.
Question. Yet your convention nominated that man?

Answer. Yes, sir, the county convention did.

Question. The people voted for him?

Answer. No, sir, he declined, and I was glad of it; it was a rebuke to the whites. Question. If he would have run, the people would have voted for him?

Answer. I do not think I would. I knew he was incompetent. I would have stulti

fied myself to have voted for him.

Question. Do you not know your State convention tendered the nomination for lieutenant governor to several negroes?

Answer. Yes, sir; and I was opposed to it.

Question. To whom was it tendered?

Answer This negro secretary of state, Cardoza-I believe he is secretary of state. Question Did he decline it?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. To whom was it then tendered?

Answer. I do not know that it was then tendered to any other. General Butler was nominated.

Question. Was he not put in nomination in the convention by a negro delegate?
Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. You had negro delegates?

Answer. Yes, sir; showing how anxious the people were for a political amalgamation if it could be done, for our protection.

Question. Are you sure it was not for your success?

Answer. We think our protection and success are synonymous. We mean intelligence. Intelligence is on our side, except a few white men who have gone over to the negroes, who were possibly intelligent-Governor Scott, for instance, and he is by no means a star. I suppose in your own State he never would have occupied a political position.

Mr. VAN TRUMP. I never heard of him until he was governor of South Carolina. Mr. STEVENSON. We are now running a young man for governor of Ohio, General Noyes, who was not heard of before the war.

The WITNESS. Governor Scott was old enough to have been heard of in Ohio, if he had been a man of mark.

By Mr. STEVENSON:

Question. He is not a veteran?

Answer. No, sir. I think Chamberlain is the smartest man connected with the whole party. I will take the word party back. I do not class them as republicans. They are the representatives of the negro population of South Carolina.

Question. You do not recognize the republican party as existing here; you call it the black and white party?

Answer. I think that is the true significance of things here. These men have assumed that name in South Carolina, and some of them in their own States before they came here; but they are not following out their principles in elevating the negro above the white people in this State.

Question. After this rioting, these murders in Laurens, was any effort made to arrest the parties charged with murder before the troops came here?

Answer. Nobody knew who was charged; but this was done: Lieutenant Estes came up the very week of the election, and he was told, "If there are to be any arrests made, just let it be known whom you want arrested-whom Governor Scott wants arrested-and they will come forward and surrender." I remember telling Lieutenant Estes myself that there was no necessity of making a big parade about this thing; that I supposed arrests would be made. I did not know who was charged. I supposed they would arrest nearly the whole county, because everybody was there and sort of mixed up in it. I told Lieutenant Estes that if any arrests were to be made, if they would ascertain who were to be arrested and let it be known, they would come forward and surrender. Instead of that being done, they telegraphed for a regiment at Nashville, and brought on a great troop of cavalry, and I do not know how many constables, and made a grand display, and arrested twelve of our people, and took them to Columbia.

Question. Was there an effort made to arrest them before the troops came?

Answer. No, sir; none whatever.

Question. Do you not know that an officer went up there with a force to make arrests and was driven out?

Answer. No, sir; I never heard of it. I do not believe it is so. I will tell you truthfully, Mr. Stevenson, I do not believe that State constable could have arrested him. Question. I mean that one of the State constables went there with considerable force. Answer. It is not true that they attempted to make any arrests. I know some six or eight or a dozen men rode through the town one evening. They came riding through armed. We were all sitting in the public square

Question. You all; how many?

Answer. Just the citizens. It is the habit of the citizens in the evening to sit in front of their stores. We had no warning, and about twelve men rode right through the square with hands on their guns, and rode up to Crews's house and staid all night, and went off. We never heard what they came for.

Question. You never heard?

Answer. I never heard.

Question. You do not seem to be in all the secrets there?

Answer. I never heard it.

By Mr. VAN TRUMP:

Question. Was Crews at home at that time

Answer. No, sir.

By Mr. STEVENSON:

Question. You did not hear that a band of two hundred and fifty armed men gathered to prevent the action of those officers?

Answer. I never heard of it, and possibly I ought to stop right there, but I must say that I do not believe one word of it. I would have heard of it.

Question. How is it you so often say if there had been Ku-Klux or any such thing you would have heard it?

Answer. I live at the village and practice law and know everybody in the county. I have been a candidate for the legislature over and over again, was elected to the senate, and I do not think a thing of that sort could have passed without my knowing it.

Question. Do you think that your relations to that community are such that the members of these unlawful organizations would tell you anything they would do?

Answer. They would not tell me anything of their violence, but such a thing could not have occurred without my hearing it. A man could not be murdered within five miles without my hearing it. The thing is impossible. I heard of Powell's death, and of Riley being killed, and the other men.

Question. Did you hear of their shooting at young Crews?

Answer. Yes, sir; I heard that report. That came from young Crews himself. I never heard anybody say they saw it done. I heard of young Crews.

By Mr. VAN TRUMP:

Question. Is it possible that two hundred and fifty men could have assembled to prevent those arrests without your having heard of it?

Answer. I do not believe it.

By Mr. STEVENSON:

Question. You do not believe it is possible in that county, not the town?

Answer. It is possible, but not probable.

Question. Suppose the Ku-Klux organization does exist, could they have assembled

in Laurens two hundred and fifty strong, and you not know it?

Answer. I think it is possible, but not probable, for two hundred and fifty to assemble at any point without somebody not belonging to them talking about it.

Question. Who killed anybody there on the day of the riot?

Answer. I do not know.

Question. Have you never heard?

Answer. I never have.

Question. Who took part in the shooting the day of the riot?

Answer. I never have heard.

Question. Those were public acts?

Answer. Yes, sir. I was in the court-house.

Question. Yet you never heard who did any of it?

Answer. No, sir. A man of that sort would hardly put himself in the position by his own statement to be annoyed to death by these prosecutions, and everything of the sort. Somebody must have seen the men shot, but that is very different from two hundred and fifty men assembling.

Question. Somebody saw the men shot?

Answer. Yes, sir, I suppose so.

Question. Did you ever hear anybody say he saw a man shot?

Answer. No, sir.

By the CHAIRMAN :

Question. You say eleven or twelve of your citizens were arrested and taken to Columbia, and writs of habeas corpus were taken out?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. What was the result of that?

Answer. Well, sir, when first arrested, they were arrested in the streets, and taken to the depot without being allowed to go to their families. Some of them sent to me previous

to going. I went down to see them, and I attempted to have a writ of habeas corpus issued by the United States commissioner, who was in town. The officers refused to allow the parties to go before the commissioner; they took them off immediately. Í followed them. When they got to Columbia they were lodged in jail. We made application for their discharge before the commissioner who had them arrested. They were discharged. Before they came out of the court-house warrants were issued upon the information of the State constable, Hubbard. He went to a magistrate in the town, and made an oath upon information and belief; he had not been within eighty miles of the county. There were twelve affidavits, one for each gentleman; and they were arrested under State warrant on the charge of murdering Volney Powell and Riley. They were lodged in jail, and we made application for a writ of habeas corpus, before Judge Vernon, then in Spartanburgh.

Question. Judge of your circuit ?

Answer. Yes, sir. He made an arrangement to have the men taken to Spartanburgh. The writ was served on the sheriff, and he promised to take them up by rail on a certain day. He got six men in an omnibus and brought them from the jail one morning. I went down that day with the other counsel to the depot. When we got there a man charged up, pretending to be the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives, summoning the sheriff before the committee of the legislature that day at 10 o'clock. The sheriff pretended that he was going to Spartanburgh, anyhow. I believe it was ali a pretense.

Question. Was this at Columbia?

Answer. Yes, sir; that prevented these men from going to Spartanburgh. In a day or two Judge, Vernon came to Columbia. We had an appointment in the court-house then to hear this writ. They summoned Judge Vernon. They knew the hour he had appointed. They summoned him before the committee of the legislature the hour before, and had him in their committee until the hour passed. We had an appointment a day or two afterwards. Finally we got the prisoners before the judge on the bench in the court-house. While we were discussing it, two lawyers in Columbiaa man named General Worthington, although the solicitor was there and had charge of the prosecution, resisting the application, claimed to represent the commonwealth of the State, and made a long speech, and another lawyer, representing the attorney general, made a speech-while that speaking was going on, they were passing a resolution in the house of representatives, suspending Judge Vernon in his functions. They had passed a resolution of impeachment, that, according to some construction of the constitution, suspending him at once, and while he was hearing the case they sent a messenger, after they had passed that resolution in the house, and served it on him. Judge Vernon, however, went through the case, although the paper had been served on him, and issued his order discharging the prisoners on bail of $5,000 each. Question. Was that for trial before him in Laurens?

Answer. Yes, sir; that was a discharge from custody.

Question. What was the ultimate result?

Answer. They then went on to the impeachment of Judge Vernon. He finally resigned, just on the day the case was to be heard. There were other charges against him. They did not exactly allege this about the habeas corpus. The ground of attack was drunkenness. He resigned, and the prisoners were discharged. The warrants were all sent up to Laurens; they are all there ready for trial, whenever we have a

court.

Question. Have you a judge?

Answer. Moses has been elected, brother of the present chief justice-a Jew, a very competent man, so far as I know. He came to Laurens this term to have a court, a week or two ago, but the legislature passed an act changing the law with reference to drawing jurors.

By Mr. VAN TRUMP:

Question. The result is, there cannot be a trial-none at all?

Answer. I can explain.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Question. Are you aware that Judge Moses holds that a jury can be drawn, and, notwithstanding that law, is a valid jury?

Answer. Yes, sir; but that is not the ground upon which he held that the court could not go on at Laurens. They must be drawn after the passage of the act, thirty days before the meeting of court, by the jury commissioner and the chairman of the county commissioners, and the county auditor. The county auditor's office was vacant, and Governor Scott made an appointment of a county auditor, but not in time to qualify within the thirty days. The result was, that the jurors were drawn by two instead of three, and he held that the act required all three to be present. The county auditor had not been commissioned, and, consequently, did not attend the drawing. Question. That was as to your last court?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. What leads to the idea that there will not be a court for two years, as I have heard suggested? The act required them to be drawn within thirty days, and every year after that, during January.

Answer. Not two years

By Mr. VAN TRUMP:

Question. Is it the opinion among the legal profession that there can be no jury drawn for two years?

Answer. Not two years; but there cannot be a jury drawn legally until next January.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Question. So far as these persons who were arrested were concerned, they were first arrested at the instance of the State authorities?

Answer. At the instance of the Federal authorities, under the act to enforce the fifteenth amendment..

Question. There was no information from your county by anybody to bring persons to trial before your State court?

Answer. No, sir.

Question. Then if this information before the United States commissioner was the only one made, how did you come to have them bound over for trial before Judge Vernon? Answer. They were discharged by the United States commissioner in Columbia, under bail, and before they got out of the court-house, while making their bond, Hubbard, the State constable, went to the State trial justice of that county, Richland County. Question. That strikes me as peculiar. Does your law authorize that?

Answer. Yes, sir; a criminal escaping from jurisdiction may be arrested anywhere. Question. Does that authorize a warrant from a trial justice in one county for an arrest in another?

Answer. In an escape from jurisdiction.

By Mr. VAN TRUMP:

Question. Was this an escape?

Answer. No, sir.

Question. Were all these men arrested citizens of the village?

Answer. Yes, sir, every one of them.

Question. Yet he made an affidavit, eighty miles away, that they were guilty of this offence?

Answer. Calling all these people away down the railroad, outside of the county, upon information and belief.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Question. Has information been made in your county by anybody of the killing of Powell, or those members of the legislature, or the citizens killed in town?

Answer. None at all. There has been no proceeding in the county at all. Our people are, perhaps, different from your people in that respect. I never heard, before the war, in my life, in the case of an act of violence, of anybody being arrested upon the affidavit of a citizen, unless he was in some way connected with the party injured. Nobody feels the duty incumbent upon him to run to a magistrate here.

By Mr. VAN TRUMP:

Question. So far as you know, did anybody there know who committed the offense? Answer. No, sir; but even if they had known it, I never knew a man to go to a magistrate, thinking it his prerogative to go and have parties arrested.

Question. Was your sheriff there during the day of the riot ?

Answer. He was one of the arrested parties.

Question. Was he there on the day of the riot?

Answer. Yes, sir; he mounted his horse immediately after he left the court-house, and commanded a posse as loudly as. any man I ever heard, riding all through the crowd. In reference to the federal arrests, after they were discharged at Columbia, Corbin, the district officer, prepared bills of indictment against all of them; and some others were arrested. The grand jury ignored two cases. He presented them one by one, and he withdrew all the cases. He has them still. They are bound over in the United States court, under the act of Congress. The grand jury returned no bill, and when the court closed, they presented their views about various matters, and among other things, they presented-not in name-Joe Crews, as the instigator of that thing at Laurens.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Question. Was there any prosecution growing out of this contest between Johnson and this constable ?

Answer. No, sir; Johnson has never been arrested by anybody.

By Mr. VAN TRUMP :

Question. Nor the constable?

Answer. No, sir. We could have indicted Crews several times for these incendiary speeches and other things, but the people of Laurens, and I suppose of the State, have never been active in prosecuting; because no man is disposed to engage in that. Even if convicted, up to a recent time Governor Scott has exercised the pardoning power in such a way that we have had very little hope of a party being punished by means of law.

By Mr. STEVENSON:

Question. Speaking of that practice of not filing complaints unless a man was concerned, where would be the remedy in the case of killing Powell, who is dead?

Answer. If a man is so friendless as to have nobody to do anything for him but his partisans

Question. You mean nobody files a complaint unless he is interested as a partisan? Answer. Interested in some way to prompt him to do it. I mean to say that generally, if the peace is broken, unless it is broken in view of an officer, the party is not arrested unless by affidavit of a man who has some feeling in the matter.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not know that you are peculiar in South Carolina in that respect. I think there are more prosecutions where men are interested everywhere.

By Mr. VAN TRUMP:

Question. Whatever may have been the cause of delay in the courts, state whether these twelve men are not ready and willing to be tried.

Answer. Assuredly they want to be tried, if they have to be tried. They are unpleasantly situated.

By Mr. STEVENSON:

Question. They would not stand in much danger with two thousand five hundred men in that county, or all the white men of the county, implicated with them, and they might well face a trial?

Answer. I do not think two thousand five hundred men are implicated.

By Mr. VAN TRUMP:

Question. I understand that most of these men came in from long distances.

Answer. Yes, sir; a long way.

By Mr. STEVENSON:

Question. They were ready to take a hand?

Answer. Ready to defend their country in a conflict of races; but so far as their conviction is concerned, you may have no apprehension of their being convicted in the world, because there is no evidence against them; but if they were guilty and the proof could be made out, I believe they would be convicted.

Question. Did you not hear of the Ku-Klux in that county in 1868?

Answer. I do not think the word had hardly started in 1868; had it?

Question. Yes, sir; it started in 1867.

Answer. I gave you the two acts of violence I heard of in 1868.

Question. Did you hear of a visit of a disguised band to the house of Witt McCue, in that county, in 1868?

Answer. I think not, sir; I may have.

Question. Did you hear of a visit by a disguised band to the house of Spencer Sullivan just before the election in 1868 in Laurens County?

Answer. Spencer Sullivan lived close to the village.

Question. And that he was threatened that if he voted the republican ticket they would come back and take his life?

Answer. No, sir; I do not remember that occurrence. I did hear in 1868, just before the election, of men riding about at night.

Question. In disguise?

Answer. I do not know about their being in disguise.

Question. Did you hear of their going to the house of Cæsar Culbertson ?

Answer. I think I did hear something about that.

Question. Did you hear that they went there and threatened him, and that they said they were Ku-Klux from Ohio?

Answer. No, sir, I never heard; certainly never.

Question And, being neighbors, he knew them and their horses?

Answer. No, sir, I never heard it.

Question That they fired pistols in his yard, and said if he voted at the election they would hang him up?

Answer. I never heard of it. I heard of Cæsar Culbertson and some man being at his house, and threats made, and of this case of Harry McDaniels, who was shot through his arm, just before the election in 1868, by men he said were white men. I heard that.