The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-03-15

of employees Of the government.
Their pay is S. Q day for the ses-
sion and special pay for their sepa-
rate votes on every measure in
which there is money. These votes
are bought and sold without even
pretense of hiding the hagitious
transaction. The negro himself is
hardly conscious of criminality,
while he makes his bargain. He
owns his mule. He sells it. He
own his chicken. He sells it. He
considers his vote just as much q
part of his personal property as his
mule or his chickens. Why should
he not sell it also? He does sell it,
and he naively wonders that anybody
should complain.
OF course the scale of pay varies.
1t is Just according to each mans in
telligence and rapacity. A few hum
dred dollars in special gratuities il
enough to satisfy the demands of q
plantation negro. Others get more.
Some of the smarter sort were accused
the other day, on the floor of the
House, by q colleague, with then hav-
ing $4,000 of State bonds in his
pocket, corruptly obtained; and the
charge was not denied. PEE.
But the evidence Of gross and uni
versal corruption is palpable in the
way everybody lives who has any
thing to do with the government.
There is happy-go-lucky air among
them all. IF black gets into the
Legislature, that is enough. He
works no more. He has no occasion.
He has money enough. 1t Is the
same with the occupants of the ex-
ccutive Offices. All are sleek and fat
with their ill-gotten gains. They are
like pirates who have captured a
richly laden vessel. They riot in the
plumber, caring not at all for the own
ers.
The methods of robbery have been
too various and universal to be
enumerated in an exposition as gen
eral an exposition as this. Suffice it
to say that they have involved every
body of any account whe belongs to
the majority. 1t is trembling mo-
rass of corruption, that shakes under
the tread of Investigation. There is
no chance to stop or punish fragrant
crimes that have been committed,
because everybody outside of mere
handful of representatives of'he tax
payers, is implicated. Whate yer
villainy is exposed, or whatever in
vestigation is threatened, silence is
at once restored by threatening the
threateners with an examination and
exposure of their own criminality.
1t is simply q band Of robbers threat
ening to tell on one another. Was
there ever such a burlesque on free
government?
"Why don't you rebel again ?"
asked a Boston man who was lately
travelling through the State" This
time you would have a reason"
Alas, why? Subjected to oppressive
conditions such as it may safely be
said no Stote or commenity in toe
civilized world is to-day enduring,
the white minority i'm South Carolina
arc quiet and dumb. They have no
life. Their spirit las gone out. The
fires Of war licked up their available
substance. The grave covers q gen.
cation of their fighting men. Until
time repairs the waste of blood and
sinew lost by war, there S no material
to organize intO.resistence. Shall " G
too nave a Poland in the South !?
Can we expect long to regulate the
internal administration of law and
justice in the State by military rule /!
And after all, are the Kuklux out
RACES but the expiring embers of an
ola contest, or are they in many cases
the kIndling sparks ola new? One
thing seems plain TO the most ordina-
ny apprehension. The condition of
things now existing in South Carroll.
ma would not be borne a month in
any Northern State without a tax
payers league being organized to re-
sist the pay ment of all taxes imposed
for fraudulent purposes and without
the sN lift establishment of q court of
lynch law. So much treason as that
exists in the blood of every Ameri-
can citizen worthy Of his birthright.
Admit everything, sud has not
South Carolina suffered enough !?
Admit she was q hot-b bed of sed ition.
Admit that she was the cauldron in
which was concocted the venom that
poisoned the nation. Admit any,
thing and evel ything. Is there to
be no expiation? Recollect that q
generation is rapidly rising that had
no hand in these things, a generation
already more than half way to its ma.
turity. j. ST.