The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-10-13
A Den OF Thieves.

1t has-long been thought that the Radi-
Gals had ''touched bottom" as the saying
is-that they had reached a social and polit-
cal depth beyond which it was not possible
to 90. But their genius has been under
valued. They are capable OF o descent
deeper than any that history records. They
have undertaken to explore a bottomless
DIT and we owe it to the Radicals Of George
town to acknowledge that they are the pio-
neers OF the adventurous journey. They
have reached the lowest stage OF the de-
scent; the remotest distance yet attained
from that angel, aspiring and benignant,
whom Shelley describes as standing on the
mountain top and pointing to the unrisen
sun. The plan Of spoliation which they
have devised and which they now propose,
for the purpose Of securing the suffrases OF
the colored people, is simply atrocious.
The old peasants war in Germany and the
Jacquerie OF France contemplated the abro-
cation of such privileges Of the mobiles and
the clergy, as rendered the lot Of the peas
ants intolerable. The people demanded the
right to gather fuel, to trap game, to use the
commons, to enjoy the benefit OF the poor
rates, and to be relieved from oppressive tax
alton and exactions. There were grounds
for that uprising, although it has been con-
demned by the judgment OF later age, and
was punished at the time by one OF the most
sanguinary retributions Of history. What
will posterity say Of the new Jacquerie which
has not the shadow of wrong to redress,
but invades vested rights only; this new
agrarian policy which seeks by high taxa
ton to confscate the lands Of the proprie-
tors the soil; nay, which has already
elected commissioner to take charge OF
them and distribute them among the land
less OF the State? There is no historic par
allel to this measure of wholesale robbery.
The overthrow of proprietary rights in the
Roman Empire, in Ireland in ST. Domingo,
was military measure, division of spoil
among conquerors. The present project is
mere financial "corner," devised by Gu
pidity, in time Of profound peace, to the
prejudice of order and capital and intelli
gence and blood.
Goldsmith touched the sympathies OF the
world, by drawing the picture Of despoiled
and deserted Irish village. Shall Radicalism
be allowed to insult the conscience and
honor OF the world by efIecting a vaster and
more pitiable desolation, by ravaging a cul-
tured, happy and virtuous State, by the
overthrow of wealth.. industry and abun-
dance and the planting OF the banner Of lib
erty on the ruins?
We know that invasions Of private right
are sometimes required by public necessity;
that there are instances when the interests
OF the few must yield to the imperative exi-
gencies of the many But there is nothing
of this sort in the present instance to JUS
tify, or even to palliate, the project Of tie
Radicals. There is no need Of securing
new field for labor; for while the scope af-
forded to the working classes is, in fact,
larger than it ever was, the number OF those
engaged in productive industry has sensibly
diminished. And if twere desirable (Which
even Sismondi denies) to make the freed
men proprietoSs OF the soil, what countless
virgin acres still await the labors OF the axe
and the plough. Itsis a remarkable circum-
stance, to which this distinguished writer
has called attention in the second volume Of
his EtucleS su,' les Sciences Sociales (pp. 439-
AL, } that the negroes of San Domingo, who
made the most rapid progress in intelligence,
virtue and prosperity, were those who cleared
the lands for themselves. He says: "The
journal of the traveller who has most re-
''cently visited the island, informs US that
''the plains where the great plantations and
+ 'the great sugar works were, are almost
''all OF them still in q state of devastation
'from the consequences of the atrocious war