Litchfield enquirer., 1874-04-16

administered proves that qualification has little influence in the appointment in mat ters under the control of single individ- ual 1t IS difficult to prove corruption; but there Is one state of facts that always should stand for proof A large expendi- iture of money by an official who is with out any estate and receives but q small salary establishes beyond doubt that the money must come from some irregular or illegal source. On this principle the governors elected under the present con- stitution stand condemned in public opin- ion. To detect and punish these crimes is impossible. The governor controls the avenues of Justice; indeed the entire sys- tenn IS one of self-sustaining and self-pro- tecting corruption. In most of the States there might be some chance of redress through the ballot-box. But here again the state government interposes an insn- perable barrier. The elections are con- ducted by persons appointed in the inter- est of the officials, and the returns are m der the absolute control of the parties in power. Under such circumstances voting IS form and elections mockery.
 Suffering under such grievances and de- spairing of relief from the state govern ment, your memorialists come respect fully to your honorable bodies for redress. The government which thus expresses us was virtually established by congress, and while we believe they did not forsee the evils to which it has given rise, we cannot doubt that they will assist in removing them so soon as they are satisfied of their existence All that We have asserted is capable of proof, but knowing as we do that the evils of which we complain are certain in their existence and are more likely to increase than diminish, your memorialists most earnestly ask your aid in providing the proper redress and re- lief.
 | ADDRESS TO THE PRESIDENT
 The address of delegates of the Charles. ton Chamber of Commerce to the Presi- dent was reported as follows in the World of March:
 MIR. PRESIDENT: We represent the Chamber of Commerce of Charleston, s. c. We have been appointed as delega- ton to cooperate with Q like body of leading citizens of the State in the pre- sentatiOn of a memorial to Congress of the Tax-papers' Convention, and to lay our grievances before your Excellency, with view to enlist your sympathy and support for the people of the State, who are now suffering by fraud and misrule, not the result of mere party domination. for there are no party issues of political nature to divide our citizens; but we sui fer by the despotism of corrupt and ig- norant faction, a body of adventurers who came into power by the connivance of the Freedmen s Bureau and the corrupt use of public funds to procure their cleo tion, which funds Congress has set apart for maintaining the indigent and aged freedmen of the State, but which was used for the corruption of the colored race, as appears by the printed Congress sional Report No. 121 of the Second Ses- sion of the Forty-second Congress of the investigating committee into the alleged frauds of General Howard:
 '1t was offered to be proved that in South Carolina the Assistant Commission CT (Scott) had been elected Governor of that State by the corrupt use of rations, provisions, and transportation: that, as ! an officer of the Bureau, and having cons | trol of this property, he, by and with the knowledge and connivance of Howard, did use such property to the extent of $SOO,:- GOO for this purpose. The names of wit hesses, of high character and members of the Republican party, were handed in, and subpenas asked for them, by whom, it was stated by respectable persons, these | facts could be substantiated. The ma jority of the Committee refused to allow | them to be summoned"
 Now, Mir. President, this fact only con- | firms your own fears as to the dangerous influence of the Freedmen's Bureau, so clearly hinted at in your very thoughtful report to President Johnson in 1865. on your return from your Southern tour of military and civil observation. You there fully and fairly stated our case in South Carolina, and if our State had been kept | under the management of the officers of the United States, and the Freedmen's Bureau had been subordinated to their honest direction and supervision. as you advised, instead of being used as a po- itical engine for corrupting the freedmen, and for sowing dissension between the two races, our mission to-day to your Ex- cellency might have been one of congratu- lation, instead of one for presenting griev- ances and invoking commiseration and | redress.
 Under the reconstruction measures of Congress, manipulated by the carpet baggers and the corruptions of,the Freed | mems Bureau. an entire subversion of | every conservative principle or practice i of the State took place, and institutions 1 foreign to the habits of our people were introduced and operated by strangers. Laws, usages, and the courts themselves | were all changed, and venerated Judges, whose reputation for learning and probity gave our courts at home and abroad an enviable reputation, were displaced, and | a code of laws were introduced from an- l other State wholly out of symwathy with | our usages and comprehension, and judges l appointed in many cases who had not mastered the lowest rudiments of the law and in whose integrity no one had conf. dence, and even judges of our highest | court have not escaped from open charges l of corruption by members of the Legisla- tuIe in their places during the session. Criminals are discharged almost as fast as they are convicted by pardons granted in consideration of political influence or services. Elections held by managers, most of whom are candidates or active politicians, appointed by the Governor and his immediate agents, no representa- tive of an adverse party being conceded; and even the polls, in many cases, open | ed at unusual places without notice. In our own city at the last election the oath requiring proof of citizenship was so mod flied by the partisan managers as to leave out that protection against illegal voting, and large numbers from the rural dis tricts and the surrounding plantations were brought into the city and voted at polls not advertised, so that ,5OO more l votes were cast at one precinct than the whole number of inhabitants residing there. The registry law which the con I CtIfntInn nf %hn Cfo%a ,~,- <,TI disregarded, because 1t would tend to re- strain illegality; and in a recent appeal against an illegal election the judges de | cllned to have the returns examined or to receive testimony of voters who confess ed they had voted illegally. Charleston, therefore, the great commercial mart of the State, and among the. largest of the export cotton ports of the country, has not single member in the Legislature representing the business interests and property of the city. The two Senators