Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1872-11-07
THE ELECTION.

Through the courtesy of Mr.. Falconer, tel
egraph operator at Chester, and Mr.. George
T. schorb, the operator at this place, we learn
that New York city gave a majority of 22,s2S
for Greeley. Greeley's majority at Char
lottesville, Va, is 200, and at Gordonsville,
Va, Al. The following majorities are report
ed for Grant: Philadelphia, $4,000; Chester
county, Pa, 1900; Raleigh, N. c., 62O; Jack
son, Miss, 644; Charlotte, N. c., 11S; Lynch
burg, Va, 170; Danville, Va, 4S; Colum-
bia, S. c., 200; Winnsboro, 15O; Chester, 499.
THE CIRCUIT COURT.
The Circuit Court for this county COM
menced its sitting on Monday last, His Honor
Judge T. J. Mackey presiding. The juries
we're organized, after which Judge Mackey
addressed the grand jury, substantially as
follows:
Gentlemen Of the Grand Jury:
The present term will close your official
relations with the Court, and relieve you OF
the arduous and important duties with which
you have been charged by the laws Of the
State for nearly year. 1t is doubtless a
subject of profound congratulation with you,
as it is with the presiding Judge, that peace
and order prevails everywhere within the
limits of your county, and that kind Provi-
dence has blessed the tillers of the soil with
abundant harvests, and kept far from US the
pestilence that has made its fearful visitations
to other sections of our country.
You are vested, gentlemen, with great
powers, and with high trust In law as in
morals, your responsibility is proportioned to
your power. Acting within your proper
sphere, you are supreme; no legal penalties
attach to your violations of the trust reposed
in you by the laws of your country, and you
are law unto yourself Hence, you should
be all the more sensible of the obligations i'm
posed upon you, and resolve to discharge them
with untiring diligence and unswerving idel-
ity. The grand jurors oath is his honor and
his bond, and upon that the Court must rest
its confidence. If you are derelict, then there
is wrong without remedy.
His Honor, after enjoining upon the grand
jury to make severe examination into the
manner in which the several county officers
had performed their duties, and especially as
to whether proper provision had been made
by the County Commissioners to secure medi-
cines and medical attendance for the sick poor
throughout the county, proceeded as follows
THE KU-KLUx.
Within the recent past, this county was the
scene of armed violence, prosecuted by q pow
erful organization, composed ofbold, bad men,
who scourged and wounded and killed many
American citizens because of their political
opinions or party affiliations. These armed
bands asserted the law of the strong hand
against the laws of the land. They paralyzed
the arm of Justice, and struck down uno6end-
ing victims almost within the shadow Of this
building, which is dedicated to the protection
of the weak against the strong. Indeed,
while these outrages we're tlagrant, members
of the grand juries themselves, who were &C
tive participants in these crimes, sat whereyo
now worthily sit, and with unblushing fore
head, looked the presiding Judge calmly in
the eye as if unconscious Of the existence OF
the Supreme Judge of all, who has recorded
their violated oaths. These banded crimi.
mails, who for so long a period thus grievously
oppressed hundreds Of their fellow citizens and
bid defiance to the laws, were but part Of q
mighty organization that extended through
MANY populous States of the South, and into
MANY counties of this State. This tremen-
dous and lawless power drew its deadly circle
of fire around its designated victims, and then
pursued them with an untiring step and
sleepless eye into exile or death. The archives
of the national government contain the sworn
testimony, proving that up to April 1871,
within period of ak years from the formal
cessation of hostilities in the open field,
seventeen thousand American citizens were
manned and scourged, and six thousand slain
outright by the bloody mandates of the organ
ization in question. The State Of South Car
olina having failed to protect citizens OF the
United States, resident within her limits, in
the free and safe exercise of their vested rights
as such, the government of the United States
intervened by its Courts, sustained by its army,
to protect its citizens in the enjoyment, un-
questioned, of all their rights of citizenship,
and to bring to trial and punishment all who
had by force invaded those rights. That in
terposition was timely, merciful djust. The
first great duty of a government is to protect
its citizens. In fact, this is the paramount OBJ
ject for which governments are founded. For
this purpose the ships of the Republic carry
their guns on the waters of every sea, and the
consuls of the United States fly the national
flag in every civilized land.
Less than twenty years ago, in the year
1853, Martin Kozta, former subject of Aus
tria, who had only declared his intention,
pursuant to law, to become citizen OF the
United States, was arrested or kidnapped on
the coast of the Mediterranean, and taken on
board of an Austrian vessel of war, to be
borne back to Austria, where he would have
suffered the death to which that empire dooms
all adiudged guilty of treason. The comman-
der of the United States brig, Saint Louisa
native of South Carolina, and still venera'
BILE citizen of our State-having been inform
ed of the circumstance by the United States
Consul at Smyrna, resolved to throw around
the man, then heavily ironed, and chained
down in the hold of an Austrian frigate, the
protection the American flag. That resolve
was bravely executed, He demanded that the
prisoner should be delivered up. The demand
was refused. He then moved his vessel near
the Austrian, which carried a much heavier
armament, and with his American sailors