The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-03-05
What is Republican Government?

The history of the plundering State govern
ments in the South is so familiar that repeti-
tion of any part of it seems to be superauous.
But unlike the ordinary misdemeanors that
attend politics Ia other States, the acts of the
Southern leaders have struck at the very foun-
dation of the State credit, and they have
| forced upon the taxpayers such burdens that
the time appears to them not far off when tax
alton and confscation shall be Synonymous
terms This is notably the case of South Car
olna, where the enormous tax levies have we'll
nigh driven the people to desperate remedies,
and where public. robbery may be said to have
been legalized. 1t has now been seven years
since the reco atruction State government was
organized in |. State. During the time the
expenditures of the State administration have
increased with frightful rapidity. Every year
| there have been promises Of reform and re-
trenchment, for no matter how confident of
success and of immunity the freebooter may
be, there is still enough of discretion in him to
respect public opinion. But these promises
have proved to be the idlest delusions, and
year after year the ingenuity of the ruling
cabal has been exerted to invent new pretences
for plunder and new means of torture for their
victims, the Taxpayers. All
of the expenses, in short, are monstrous, and
such extravaganza could not be perpetrated in
any except Southern State. At the last State
election the promises of reform were freely
made, only to be followed by the longest step
yet taken in any one year towards the absorp.
tion of the States resources by the vultures
who are preying upon it. Lately the taxpayers
have been holding a convention in Columbia; (;
after long discussion they conclude that there
is no remedy at their command, and they now
memorialize Congress to come to their rescue.
They ask, in effect as the people of Louisiana
have asked, that Congress shall guarantee them
Republican form of government, justifying
this demand by the belief that the present form
there is but an oligarchy over which the people
have no control 1t is evident that the most
of the Southern States have not yet been set
tied, for gradually the impression is forcing
itself upon us that the local quarrels-the
election frauds, the violence, the corrupt legis-
lation, and the mercenary judicial decisions
are of national consequence and concern the
welfare of republican institutions. We have
too hastily concluded that the immediate rem
edy is in the hands Of the people in the South
ern States, as it is in New York. We have
said New York has overthrown Tweed, and
South Carolina ought to be able to overthrow
his imitator. But the cases are different. In
the Northern States the great majority of the
voters are tax x-payers; in the Southern States
the property has always been in nparatively
few hands, and when suddenly the ballot was
given to large mass of people who had no ex-
perience of political affairs, the taxpayers be-
came helpless minority. The shrewd and
venal men who took the lead of this new
element aggravated the class divisions natural
ly existing until the property of the State was
at their mercy through the ballot of those who
had only their prejudices to crafty. The tag
payers have not been entirely bameless, be-
cause they might have conciliated the power
that now unconsciously, ignorantly upholds the
rogues who oppress them. Yet it is difficult to
see what Congress can do in the matter. 1t is
true, as these nemorialists justly urge, and as
similar bodies in other States have urged, that
Congress interfered to establish these govern
ments But, if this was wrong, it does not
Justify another interference. With the clearest
conviction that South Carolina and Louisiana,
and other Southern States, are the worst gov
erned communities in the world. it is yet diff
cult to find an excuse in the constitution for
the interference of Congress, and there appears
to be no remedy but the slow and tedious one
of gradually educating the people in their du-
ties, and awaiting the more general distribution
Of the taxable property.-New York Eue'sang
Post .''''