Daily Kennebec journal., 1876-08-12
Mississippi Terrorism.

The Mississippi Committee appointed by the
Senate to investigate alleged frauds, violence and
intimidation at the last election in that State pre-
sent mass of testimony in their report corrobo-
rating all which has been charged of the outrages
perpetrated by the democrats. The report con-
cludes as follows:
"The events which the committee were called
to investigate by the order of the Senate, con-
stitute one of the darkest chapters in American
history. Mississippi was leading State IN the
war of the rebellion, and an early and persistent
advocate of those fatal political beresies in which
the rebellion had it's origin. To her in as large
degree as to any other State may be charged justly
the direful evils of the war; and when the war
was ended the white inhabitants resisted those
measures of equality which were essential to local
and general peace and prosperity. They refused
to accept the negro their equal politically, and
for ten years they have seized every opportunity
for fresh denial of his rights at last they have
reganed supremacy in the State by acts Of vo-
lence, fraud, and murder, 1raught with more than
all the horrors of open war, without its honor,
dignity, generosity. or justice.
ii. BY them the negro Is not regarded as
cilizen and whenever he finds friend and ally in
his efforts to advance himself in political knowl-
edge or intellectual culture, that friend and ally,
whether a native of the State or an immigrant
from the North, is treated as public enemy.
The evil consequences of this policy touch and
parayze every branch of industry and the move
ments of business in every channel
ILL., Mississippi. with its fertile soil, immense
natural resources and favorable commercial posi-
tion, is in fact more completely excluded from
the influence of the civilization and capital OF the
more wealthy and advanced States of the L Union
than are the distant coasts of China and Japan.
Men who possess capital are ANXIOUS to escape
from State IN which no freedom of opinion Is
tolerated where active participation in public
affairs is punished often with social osracism,
always with business losses and not infrequently,
as the record shows, with exile and the abandon
ment of property through fear Of death.
". Consequently lands depreciate in value,
the rewards of labor become more and more un-
certain, taxes more and more burdensome, the
evils of general disorder are multiplied and in
tensified and by an inevitable rule OF social and
public life, the evils themselves reacting, increase
the spirit Of disorder. Unless this tendency can
be arrested every successive chapter in the annals
of that State will be darker and bloodier than the
preceding one.
V. This tendency cannot be arrested by the
unaded efforts of the peaceful patriotic and law
abiding citizens of the State. There is small
BODY OF native white persons, who, with heroic
courage, are maintaining the principles of justice
and equality. There is also small body OF men
from the North who, with equal courage, are
endeayorng to save the State from anarchy and
degradation. If left to themselves, the negroes
would CO. operate with these two classes.
vi. But arrayed against them a.! are majority
of the white people, who possess the larger part
of the property; who uniformly command leisure,
not; who look with contempt upon the black race,
and with hatred upon the white men who are
their political allies; who are habituated to the
use Of arms in war and in peace; who in former
times were accustomed to the exclusive enjoyment
of political power, and who now consider them
selves degraded by the elevation of the negro to
the rank of equality in political affairs.
VII. They have secured power by force, and,
if left to themselves, they will by fraud and force
retain it. Indeed, the memory of the bloody
events Of the campaign of 1875, with the knowl-
edge that their opponents can command on the
instant, the presence of organized bodies of armed
men at every voting place, will deter the Republ-
can party from any general effort to regain the
power wrested from them. These disorders exist
also in the neghboring States, and the spirit and
ideas which give rise to the disorders are even
more general.
Viii. The power of the National Government
will be invoked, and honor and duty will alike
require its exercise. The nation cannot witness
with indifference the dominion of lawlessness and
anarchy in State, with their incident evils and
knowledge of the inevitable consequences. 1t
residing in Mississippi, and this duty it must per-
form. 1t has guaranteed to the State Of Mississippi
q republican form of government, snd this guar
antee must be made good. The measures neces-
sary and possible in an exigency are these:
First Laws may be passed by Congress for the
protection Of the rights of citizens in the respective
States.
Second-States in anarchy. or wherein the af-
fairs are controlled by bodies of armed men,
should be denied representation in Congress.
Third-The constitutional guarantee OF re-
publican form Of Government to every State will
require the United States if these disorders it,
crease, or even continue, and all milder measures
shall prove Intellectual, to reconstruct the State
upon republican basis
The committee, in their incisive report, make
four extracts only from the evidence. Three OF
them are the narratives of three widows of three
martyrs to the republican creed in Mississippi
Tafa, white; Caldwell, colored; Hodge, black.
Their testimony is reproduced In full
The most pathetic story of them all was told by
poor Ann Hodge, shy, frightened looking jet
mother of the two orphan children, whose father
had been slain in cold blood. He was Of the
victims of the series of massacres that followed
| the riot at the Clinton barbecue, a republican
meeting called by republicans only, which was
| broken up by an armed company from Raymond
| and ended ia running fight between the white,
| and blacks. 1t was held on Saturday, the h of
September. Armed companies from Vicksburg
and the vicinity of Clinton spent the next day-all
one long autumnal Sunday-in securing the
| country for negroes, and almost every man whom
they saw they murdered without warning or mer-
| cy. jackson, the capital, eight miles oil, was
crowded for weeks with colored refugees, and it
was not until the planters became alarmed for the
cotton crop that it was safe for any one of them
to go back 1t was then that MIR. Haffa was killed.
and from thirty to fifty negroes.
Square Hodge, the husband of Ann, was one of
the victims of the Clinton riot. lie was shot in
the arm He went home with his arm in sling.
Next morning party OF democrats came after him
Let their names be given to the infamy they have
earned. They were Henry Quick. Willy Locke,
Bryan Mcdonald. John Mcdonald, George Allen,
John McNeir, Allen Grafton, and two or three
others whom the widow lid not know. They we' {
all on horseback, armed with guns and pistols
There fOur colored the hOuse. and