substituting others presided over by judges appointed by Kellogg, having extraordinary and exclusive jurisdiction over political questions; by changes in the law centralizing in the Governor every form of political control, including the suspension of elections; by continuing the returning-board with absolute power over the returns of elections; by the extraordinary provisions enacted for the trial of titles and claims to office; by the conversion of the police force, maintained at the expense of the city of New Orleans, into an armed brigade of State Militia, subject to the command of the Governor; by the creation. . of monopolies in markets, gas-making, water-works, and ferries, cleaning vaults, removing filth, and doing work as wharfingers; by the abolition of courts with elective judges, and the substitution of other courts with judges appointed by Kellogg, in evasion of the constitution of the State; by enactments punishing criminally all persons who attempted to fill official positions unless returned by the returning-board; by unlimited appropriations for the payment of militia expenses, and for the payment of legislative warrants, vouchers, and checks issued during the years 1870 to 1872; by laws declaring that no person, in arrears for taxes after default published, shall bring any suit in any court of the State, or be allowed to be a witness in his own behalf measures which, when coupled with the extraordinary burdens of taxation, have served to vest, in the language of Gov. Kellogg's counsel, “a degree of power in the Governor of a State scarcely exercised by any sovereign in the world." With this conviction is a general want of confidence in the integrity of the existing State and local officials, . . which is accompanied by the paralyzation of business and destruction of values. . . The securities of the State have fallen, in two years, from 70 or 80 to 25; of the city of New Orleans from 80 or 90 to 30 or 40; while the fall in bank-shares, railroadshares, city and other corporate companies, have, in a degree, corresponded. Throughout the rural districts of the State the negroes reared in habits of reliance upon their masters for support, and in a community in which the members are always ready to divide the necessaries of life with each other, not regarding such action as very evil, and having immunity from punishment from the nature of the local officials, had come to filching and stealing fruit, vegetables, and poultry, so generally.. that the raising of these articles had to be entirely abandoned, to the great distress of the white people, while . the taxation had been carried almost literally to the point of confiscation. In New Orleans the assessors are paid a commission on the amount appraised, and houses and stores are to be had there for the taxes. In Natchitoches Parish the taxation reached about 8 per cent of the assessed value on property. In many parishes all the white Republicans and all the officeholders belong to a single family. There are five of the Greens in office in Lincoln; and there are seven of the Boults in office in Natchitoches. . . The Kellogg government claims to have reduced taxation. This has been effected in part by establishing a board to fund the debt of the State, at 60 per cent. of its face value. This measure aroused great hostility, not so much of the reduction of its acknowledged debt, as because it gave to the funding board,. . discretionary authority to admit to be funded some six millions of debt alleged to be fraudulent. So that under the guise of reducing the acknowledged debt it gave opportunity to swell the fraudulent debt against the State. . . Rings have been formed in the parishes composed of the parish officers, their relatives, and of co-operating Democrats, who would buy up these obligations, put them in judgment, and cause them. to be enforced, to the great distress of the neighborhood — a distress so great that the sales of lands for taxes had become almost absolutely impossible. The Republican Rule in South Carolina House Misc. Doc. no. 31, part i, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 335. Extracts from Governor Chamberlain's statements, published in the Charleston News and Courier, September 20, 1876. He was then candidate on the Republican ticket for re-election. [1875-1876] The cover of vast frauds: That certificates for legislative expenses have been made the cover of vast frauds no man will dispute. They are universally regarded as the last culminating evidence of a prevailing system of corruption which has disgraced our State and offended the nation. [Veto of bonanza bill, March 17, 1875.] The sale of votes: A very large number of the members of the South Carolina legislature come to the capital for the purpose of selling their votes and making all they can out of office. [Interview, May 24, 1875.] Stealing, pure and simple: The last six sessions, up to the time I was inaugurated, cost the State, under the head of legislative expenses, the enormous sum of $2,147,430.97. These figures, I may say, are unparalleled in the history of American legislation. It is stealing, pure and simple. [Interview, May 24, 1875.] A farce and a fraud: The duties of a trial-justice here are precisely the same as the duties of justice of the peace in other States; yet previous governors had appointed and commissioned over two hundred men to the important duties of this office who could not write or read a word of the English language. It was a farce and a fraud; for how can men thus ignorant intelligently try cases, civil and criminal, brought before them? [Interview, May 24, 1875.] A travesty: What a travesty it is to see men filling the office of school commissioner, to pass upon the qualifications of school-teachers, when they can barely write their names. [Speech, February 2, 1876.] The doom of radicalism: No party can rule this State that supports Whipper and Moses. . . There is but one way to save the republican party in South Carolina, and that way is to unload Moses and Whipper, and all who go with them. . . Neither the administration at Washington, with all its appliances, civil and military, nor all the denunciations of the world heaped upon me, can save the republican party here from overwhelming defeat during this year, unless we can persuade the people of this State that such things as these judicial elections will be undone, and never by any possibility be repeated. [Letter to Senator Morton, June 13, 1876.] 2. FRAUDS, TAXATION AND EXPENDITURE The Refreshment Room Report on Public Frauds (1877), p. 170. Statement of Lewis Grant, porter, South Carolina state house. [1868-1874] A PART of my duty was to attend to the refreshment room adjoining the room occupied by the Clerk of the Senate. I generally opened the room at 8 o'clock in the morning and kept it open from 2 to 4 next morning. During that time some one was constantly in the room, eating, drinking or smoking. Senators, members of the House and State officers and Judges and editors of influential newspapers were constant visitors; not an hour in the day, and but few at night, but what some one of them were there drinking and smoking. Many of the Senators and members would come to the room before breakfast, hunting a drink or "eye-opener." I cannot estimate the amount drank on an average every day, but several gallons, with a considerable amount of wine, porter, ale, &c., included. We kept the best article all the time; the Senators and members would complain if any but the best of cigars and wines and liquors were furnished them. I remember many times to have had on hand what I considered very good cigars and liquors, but they would complain. I found it hard to keep a sufficient amount of cigars on hand to supply their demands, from the fact that the Senators and members on leaving would generally fill one or two of their pockets. I have seen men assembled in bar rooms drinking and carousing, but I never saw anything to equal the refreshment room of the Senate for drinking, smoking and talking. Sunday was no exception to the rule. Often, after they would drink heavy, many of them would lie down on the sofas and sleep until next morning. I remember often when the call of the Senate was made that the members would be in the refreshment room drinking. I thought it impossible for men to drink so much whisky and attend to any business. I remember that a large majority of the men who assembled at the room were Republicans, though some Democratic Senators and some few from the House were there. . . The Senate refreshment room was where the members met to talk over the various jobs that were under consideration and make arrangements as to how they would vote on them. When some of them would leave they would put a bottle of champagne in their pockets. The room was kept open and refreshments received from the time I was appointed porter. "The State Must Take Care of its Statesmen" Report on Public Frauds (1877), p. 29. Statement of Josephus Woodruff, clerk of the South Carolina Senate. [1868-1874] UNDER the head of supplies was embraced anything that a Senator chose to order. Orders were generally given through the Clerk, and the accounts rendered against the Clerk of the Senate. At first these orders were moderate and included only such necessary articles as stationery and postage stamps, but they generally increased until they assumed gigantic proportions. The accounts were . . made payable out of the Senate contingent fund. From the commencement of my official career the Committee to audit and control the contingent expenses of the Senate always claimed the right to order what they pleased and include in their reports, under the names of "sundries and others," their personal accounts. The practice became so general as to embrace nearly every Republican and some Democratic Senators and the accounts ordered to be paid without inquiring or a dissenting voice. The Senate Rule requiring all reports to lie over one day for consideration was almost always suspended in these cases and the reports considered immediately. They were agreed to, [and] the accounts ordered to be paid. Senators would leave their accounts with the Chair . man of the Committee on Contingent Accounts, and when personal bills were settled in this way they were returned to Senators receipted. The largest bills were rendered for refreshments, including the best liquors and cigars, which were served to Senators and their friends in a room next to the office of the Clerk of the Senate. The refreshment room was kept |