The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1872-02-29
REPORTS FR0lf THE OUTRAGE
COMMITTEES.
Extract from the Radical Report
Admitting that fhe People OF
the South have been Out.
ragged and HsIundered by
Corrupt Adyeufmrer~

The refusal of large portion of the veal
thy and educated men of the South to dis
charge their duties as citizens has brought
upon them the same consequences which
are being suffered in Northern cities and
communities from the neglect of their bus
mess and educated men to participate in all
movements of the people which make up
self government. The citizen in either sec
ton who refuses or neglects. from ANY mo
tive to take his part in self government has
learned that he must now suffer and help
to repair the evils OF bad government. The
neWly-made Vothfs OF the South. at the close
OF the war, it is testified. were kindly dis
posed toward their masters. The feeling
between them even yet seems to be one OF
confidence in all other than their political
relations. The refusal of their former mas
tiers to participate i'll political recOnstruc
ton necessarily left the negroes to be infiu-
enced by others Many of them were
elected 10 office, and entered it with honest
intentions TO do their duty, but were unfit
ted for its discharge. Through their in
strumentality many unworthy white men,
having obtained their confidence. also pro-
cured public positions in legislative bodies
This mixture of ignorant but honest men
with better educated knaves gave opportu-
nifty for corruption, and this opportunity
has developed a state OF Generalization on
this subject which may and does account
justly complain.
Extract from the Minority Report
Showing what the Prosecuted
Classes Of the south have
done for Peace and how
they have been
WrOmged
THE ACQUIEsCENCE OF THE PEOPLE
The minority state that the men of the
Sonth, under the programme laid down for
them, recognized their State governments !;
elected Representatives and Senators to
Congress; ratified the thirteenth amend
ment by their Legislatures; conferred civil
rights on their emancipated slayes-in :ort
did all theo thought the Federal govern
ment wished them to do; but they were
mistaken. They had failed to elect men to
Congress who would blindly obey the or
ders of the leaders who dictated. and were
determined To continue to dictate, the leg
islatIon of the country. A system has
grown up whereby great monied mOnopO-
lies were fostered and enriched at the eX-
pense of labor, and especially of a9ricultu-
raj labor, which il was not believed the
Representatives of Southern constituencies
would sustain. The doors of Congress were
closed on them, of course, not avOwedly for
the true reason. and, so far as thy we're
concerned, taxation without representa-
ton was their fate from that time forward !,
and has so continued with some exceptions
substantially until now. When they had
not Representative in Congress. a tax OF
3 cents pound was levied on all cotton eX-
ported, that being sher great sta
pie product, while every other pOr-
ton of the country could not export its
product duty free. The freedmen's bureau
bill and civil rights bill werel next imposed
on them by the other States. Then fol-
lowed series of reconstruction measures,
with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amend
ments, which they were required to accept,
lndorse, and approve as condition prece-
dent to being allowed to have any civil
governments at all, because until that was
done the liberty and property OF every man,
woman, and child, loyal and disloyal, white
and black, were held at the mercy of any
soldier who might be placed over them. A
careful reading of the testimony taken
would convince every impartial man that
the endurance and long-suffering of that
people have been such as no people ever
before exhibited.
THE DEBTS OF THE SOUTH.
The minority dwell at much length on the
carpet-bag, scalawag, and negro rule,
showing that while the assessed value of
taxable property in the eleven States of the
South has been reduced from 81 1888, 757, 9i2
in 1860 to $2.026440,97l in 1870, being u loss
of $23J7, 3O6,79l or over $300,0O0,O00
more than now remains, the State fax
alton on what these people have now was in
1870 $l2.Sl3,6l5, while it was $S165,4S6 in
1850, when their affairs were managed by
their own people, and the county taxation
| in 1860 on all property they then owned was
only $3,ll5.1S4, while now, under carpet
$7,000,000 more on the remnant still in ex-
| istehce than it was on the whole property
| they owned when the war began. In view
| of the enormous debt which is shown to
have been wantouly, cOrruptly and fraud
ulently heapea upon people as poor as the
census reports show, with tive-eights of
| their property gone and taxation on the
remnant nearly four-fold as much rs it was
on the whole when affairs were honestly
managed, is it TO be expected that the peo-
pie OF these States will have either love or
respect for the men or party by whom they
have been thus plundered? No man can
look over the testimony taken before the
committee without coming To the conclu-
sion that no people have been so mercilessly
robbed and plundered, and so wantOnly and
| causeIessly humiliated and degraded; so
recklessly exposed to the rapacity and lust
of the ignorant and vicious portion of theiI
own community and of other States, rs the
people of the South have been for the las
six years.
/