The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1874-05-30


The June Number of Scribner's, in its
continuation Of Edmund Kings Great
South" discusses the South Carolina prob
blem with fullness, sharpness and apparent
fairness that will arrest the attention OF poll
ticans Confessedly the greatest evil that
can befall the south is a war of races; yet
the mismanagement Of South Carolina by the
powers at Washington has inaugurated such
a war in that state already, and there is
apparently no hope Of its cessation this side
Of the bitter end 1t has grown out of the
teaching of carpct.bag demagogues in the
first place, aud is prccipitated by the question
of taxation.
MANY of the Slowland negroes" says Mr..
King, were firmly impressed, when they
were first called upon to use the ballot that
they were to gain some property by it, and
great numbers of them still have an idea that
they have been in some manner deirauded of
what they were entitled 10. They have also
been told by so many legislators of their own
race that all the property, once their mas
tcrs', now properly belonged to them, that
they have taken literally to believing it, in
many cases, while, in others, they consider
the whole thing muddle entirely beyond
their comprehension. This assertion that the
negroes ought to take the planters lands,
has been often made by white politicians,
who gained control of the negro at the time
that the white natives refused To take any
part in the elections, in the reorganization OF
of the State The whole theory of taxation
in the commonwealth, as evolved by Nash
and others of the few colored men of talent
! 1 thp levi latnrn il nm N those
words from the present Governors last mes
sage: "The taxes fall chiefly where they
! bclonG-upOn real estate. The owner cannot
afford to keep thousands of acres idle and un.
productive, merely 10 CRAFTY his personal
vanity, and because he inherited them from
his father. Stern necessity, therefore, will
compel him 10 cut up his ancestral posses
sions into small farms, and sell them To those
who can and will make them productive
and thus the masses of the people will be
come property holders"
Swart Demos in the legislative chair, with
artful rogucs around him, remembers only
that the tax was not raised from land, but
upon the slaves, previous To 1860; and when
he thinks of ii, very likely his blood is hot,
and lac willingly applies a SaShing tax 10
the landowners "ln the old DAYS" he saws,
your cotton acres, worth hundreds ofdollarS,
were only taxed four cents AN acre, but on
four hundred thousand wretcheS, such rs |,
you placed tax OF 60 cents per head, and
made Us work it out thus getting nearly half
a million of revenue. Now Ne will make
you work ont your tax, and we will wreSt
your lands away from you" And so bitter;
ness is ucedlcsSly provoked ON both sides,
and there is a veritable war of races. Ii Is
not taxation, nor even an increase of taxation,
that the people of South Carolina object TO;
but II Is tdrdtioH sriMoW representations and
unjust, fyHnaicrl, arbitrary. ocsrrhe,aiHg
tardttoR, producing revenues which never get
any further than the already bursting poe.
kets of knayeS and dupes,
Besides the "Grcat South" which is splen.
, dIdly illustrated, other illustrated papers are
the "Au Sable Chasm," an account of AN
Elephan; Hunt in SIAM" &c There are in
this number SiN s.urics, hy authors like SAKE