Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1872-08-16
From the Boston Post.
Grant,a Political Prlsnnera


At length the pitiful condition of the
| siXty-iVe poor men confined for political
Offenses in the Albany PenitentiaIy has ex-
cited the compassion OF a tender-heartcd
member of the Administration party; and
| it is thought that three of them may be
released through the exercise of Executive
clemency. Mr.. Gerritt Smith has accom-
plished more than lie sought by his visit to
these victims of Grants ambition. He
went there with purely philanthrapic mo-
tives, and he comes away with the most
terrible evidence of an outrage upon limo
cent citizens unparalleled in our history
The three cases which he more particu-
larly examined, he finds to be those of in
nocent men. One of these, a youth of
nineteen, is dying in unjust Imprisonment.
Another is an old man of sixty lately
holding the office of magistrate, and utterly
guiltless OF the charges against him. In
short, the brief and incomplete inquiry
made by MIR. Smith has satisfied him that
the ''punishment inflicted upon many of
these poor and ignorant men is wholly IN
warranted by the evidence" In conse-
quence, Mr.. Smith appeals to the Presi-
dent, in the name of humanity, to release
only three of these victims, prudently re-
framing from asking too much at once of
the ruler who has consigned them to their
prison-tomb, and assures him that one is
already so broken down by his confine-
lnent as to be certain of speedy death in
any case.
This is the first honest examination that
these men have had. Taken from the pillow
and the cornfield on their little South Caro-
lima farms, by FOSTERING troops Of Federal
soldiery, prOdded along the weary road to
court with bayOnets, accused of a crime of
which they know nothing, and frequently,
as in the case of the Brown mentioned by
Mr.. Smith, urged to plead guilty of an of
fence of which they they were ignOeant,
partisan court sentenced them, and the
Administration deported the cOnvicts to O
Northern prison. Mr.. Smith mildly charac-
terizes the evidence as insufficient. The
public knows it to have been as gros an out
rage upon justice as the arrests were upon
individual liberty; and that the whole course
os these proceedings, under the Enforce
ment Act, against the Peaceable Con-
sentative farmers of South Carolina, was a
terrible political villainy. The purpose is
seen in Senator Chambers statement of
the similar operation in the North State.
There he relied upon 1000 Grant votes
from men who, like these more unfortu-
nate, had bean indicted under the Ku-Klux
act, with sthe promise of release and the
threat Of Imprisonment, according 4s they
should vote. Mr.. Smith says that these |
men are innocent; but will q tardy pardon |
restore their health, bring back their lost |
crops, atone to their suffering families for
the want and privation undergone during |
the absence Of the husbands and fathers :? |
No more than the late disbanding of Clay |
toms militia in Arkansas can call TO life |
those murdered to advance the same cause |
for which these were sent to- the peniten- |
tiary. Yet, with all his knowledge, MIR. 1
Gerritt Smith advises the Reelection of the |
man in whose name, under whose author
lty, and for whose personal interest this |
wickedness was perpetrated. 8.a7ss