Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1867-10-04


THE NECESSITY FOR MILITARY RULE
AT THE SoUTH.-At Philadelphia, Fri
day night, Gen. Sickles was called out by
the members of the Grand Army of the
Republic, and made speech, in which he
vindicated the action of Congress against
the South, and showed the necessity of
military occupation for awhile, as follows !:
"The Legislature of South Carolina, in
1865, passed a law, approved by Mr..
Perry, provisional governor, recognizing
the militia of the State. BY that law
any officer of the militia was authorized in
the exercise of his own discretion to call
out his command, shoot down, dispense,
kill and destroy any assemblage of freed
people Of color found anywhere. Under
the circumstances that meant mischief.
That law was suspended by military au-
thority, and Congress prohibited all such
militia. (Cheers for Congress and Gen.
Sickles.) In North Carolina, in 1865,
law was passed legalizing all transactions
of guardians, executors and trustees, by
which property of widows and orphan
children was turned into confederate
bonds, and went to bolster up the rebellion
and impoverish the women and children
to whom it belonged. A worthy citizen
OF New York, whose name is Mclaughlin,
went to South Carolina soon after the war
| and hired an abandoned plantation from
the freedmen's bureau, in whose charge it
was placed by law. Mclaughlin planted
and raised crop, when along came re-
turned rebel, who claimed the land, had
him put in prison until he could find forty
thousand dollars bail for trespass, and took
possession of the land and crops. (Cries
of " Shame, shame.") That is speci-
men of the treatment Northern settlers
would have received in the absence of
military protection, since given by Con-
gress. In Casswel county. N. c., during
the war, a loyal student, while escaping
from the enemy's lines 10 ours, where he
afterwards did good service, took without
leave one night piece of bacon for his
subsistence on the march. When he re-
turned home after the war was supposed
to be over, he was arrested, tried on a
charge of burglary, and sentenced to be
hung and to pay the costs. daughter
and cheering) While he was awaiting
his trial and pending the execution of his
sentence, the prisoner was chained inside
and iron cage and kept there for year,
without blanket even in winter. Infor-
nation of his case was undergoing inves-
tigation when the governor of North Car
DINA, in exercise of the power granted to
him by the military commander, pardoned
the man. The costs not having been paid
on account of poverty, he was confined
for some time afterward in the same place,
until released by military authority. Here
IS an Illustration of what must have been
the fate of loyal refugees if the govern
ment had not afforded them military pro-
lection. Three thousand schools for the
education of the freed people have been
established under the protection of our
bayonets. Two hundred and fifty thous-
and coiored people attend these schools
nor has our presence aided only our loyal
friends, whom we were bound in honor
aud humanity to protect. Assured of ius-
tice, free labor has produced this year
100000 bales of cotton, and the largest
crop of grain raised in many years. The
value of Ibis crop in money is more than
100000, 0O0-its value to the population
of the Ssutl can only be measur ed by the
estimate 10 be put o, their lives, for with
out it they must have persisted by famine
and yet without military protection the
freedman wonld have fed from their a.,