The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1872-08-31
South Carolina Finances.


South Carolina Is reckon is the only ,auth
ern state sure ior Grant. 1t is made 30 by
the fact that the state is completely under The
control OF the cagpet-baggers, who wer, LIS;
placed IN powe- there, and Were afterwards
| kept in power, by the bayonets of the national
government, until they are now able to keen
themselves III power 10y robbiug the state Of
many millions of dollars and using T. portion
OF the 'swag" in buying up the Negro voters.
whom they drive to the polls to vote Their lid
Ding as butcher drives flock OF sheep to
the shambles for slaughter.
Precisely how South Carolina has been
piundered by these "loyal'' carpet-bag thieves
ana scalawass is detailed in a report recently
submitted to a convention of the anti Grant re-
form party OF that state. According to this lc-
report, thefnancial board OF the state was com
poseo OF Gov. Il. X. Scott, VI. c.. Parker, state
Treas, and G. II. Chamberlain, attorney GENE.
raj, all carpet-5aggers. In 1870, when they had
run up the debt Of the state to about 81 900 900.
consisting OF hall dozen kind of bonds, some
DearlAg SIX and some 8 and 10 per cent. inter
est, and running from five to forty wears, the
Legislature passed law for the issue of ST.
$4,000 new bonds. by which all the old sccu-
rites were to be taken up and converted into
one uniform series The law contemplated
and authorized no increase of the state debt.
but simply to make It's state securities uni
form. The new bonds were prepared, and
paced IN the lands Of the above named
financial board For awhile matters went
on smoothly, and $l,O30,O 900 of the old bonds
ana stocks were taken in, and an equal
amount of the conversion bonds issued IN lieu
thereof; but soon the funds in the treasury
ran low, heavy pressure for money came. and
the financial board commenced hypothecatinp
the conversion bonds to secure loans effected
In New York through II. II. Kempton. The
board hoped to redeem their Obligations by
levy OF taxes, and thus withdraw the bonds
lhey borrowed more and more money in New
York, paying rHinous rates of discount, and
still continued to use the conversion bonds as
collaterals, until the entire $G,OO0OOO left was
exhausted. When this was done they actu-
ally took the $l,030000 Of olu bonds which
had been converted, and which III legal CON
temptation were cancelled, and relssned or
hypothecated them, and the whole concern was
finally sold, and is now on the market as a
ocbt against the state. Not only Is the origi.
nal dcot OF the state thus without the shadow
OF legal authorization raised from S7,OO0OOO
to nearly $4,000, 900, but the state has float
ing debt besides, caused by the sxtravagant
appropriations OF the ncgro-carpe tbagger LEG.
islature, varously estimated at from three TO
ten millions Of dollars And for all this enor-
nous expenditure the state has not IL dollar to
show in substantial! improvement or property
Of any kind The Whole vast sums have been
literally st1'ea by The carpet .baggers and negro
Legislators And the white property owners
OF the state upon whose lands this enormous
debt rests as Il III ,rigagc, are utterly helpless,
not even being allowed to vote under pain of
prosecution as kukiuX And this is the sort
OF government that Is proposed to be pcrpetu-
atcd, not only in South Carolina but in most
OF the Southern states, by the reelection of
Grant.