National Republican., 1876-08-18
time and means to work that must necessarily
be performed to insure success for any organi-
Mr.. Lamar on the Hamburg Riot.


We have before us a series of documents in
relation to the Hamburg, South Carolina,
riot, both interesting and instructive. The
documents consist, first, of the grossly untrue
account of the affair by the correspondent of
the Charleston Ners and Courier, crooked
Democratic paper, which supports for the
Goyernorship of South Carolina that prince of
plunderers, Chamberlain; second, a correct
report of the affair by Col. Butler in a letter
to the New York World; third, villainous
article in the New York Herald of the 17th,
based on the Ne,cs aud Courier's version of the
affair, and advising the Southern negroes to
organize and fight the whites; fourth, an arti-
Gle in a similar strain in a religious paper pub
lished in Charleston, and fifth, the telegraphic
report of the extraordinary speech of Mr..
Lamar, of Mississippi, in the House on the
18th, denouncing the whites engaged in the
affair in the most vicious and yindictive terms.
The applause which the Associated Press re-
porter tells US greeted Mr.. Lamar's speech
from the Republican side of the House when
he charged the Hamburg men with the mur-
der of the negroes, may have rung very sweetly
upon the eloquent Mississippian's ear, but we
are disposed to think that the speech and ap-
pIause have fallen with a sharp discordance
upon the hearts of the unfortunate people of
S0utbC Carolina, Louisiana and Miss sspIi When
we read Mr.. Lamar's disgraceful attack upon
the unfortunate citizens of Hamburg, who, in
defending themselves against
AN INFURIATED NEGRO MOB,
were forced to strike some deadly blows, We
almost blush for him.
When Southern leaders like Mr.. Lamar thus
misrepresent Southern men and malign them
to win favor for themselves among the bloody
20 rrvnr,1 1ar
that Radical paper in Charleston warns the
white people of South Carolina that there are
$4,000 black men in the State that can bear
Winchester rifles, and that there are 10000
negro women who can light a torch and use
the knife: or that the New York Herald
charges that the decent part of the population
of South Carolina have no public spirit, hu-
manity and Christian spirit; that they have
been guilty of an out rage worthy of the Sioux,
and advises Governor Chamberlain to organ
ize a negro militia to hunt and shoot down the
whites.
Mr.. Lamar could find no words too strong
in which TO denounce the killing of the negroes
at Hamburg. But he seems to have been con-
veniently oblivious of the facts-frst, that
Gen. Butler and other prominent citizens used
every means in their power to quiet the ne
groes, but in vain; and, secondly, that the
negroes
FIRED THE FIRST voLLEY
upon the whites, instantly killing Mr.. Mckie
Merriwether, an estimable young man. Why
did not Mr.. Lamar state these facts! Or, If
ignorant of the circumstances, why did he
spring so promptly to his feet to condemn his
own people, and evoke the approval of the
men who have made it business to misrepre-
sent these sort of troubles in the South to the
detriment and defamation of our people.
The men who are responsible, primarily, for
these bloody riots are the Radical politicians,
who have for years outraged the whites, while
they have kept the minds of the negroes in
famed to the highest pitch.
This affair, like the similar ones which have
occurred in Louisiana, was, IN the language
of Colonel Butler, "a sort of a spontaneous
combustion the materials of which the
Radical leaders had prepared. The whites
have done all that lay in their power to pre-
vent these affairs, but the carpet-baggers have
urged them on; and now that Mr.. Lamar,
who is regarded at the North as q representa-
tive Southern man, has given the bloody y-shirt
shriekers the weight of his influence, and the
carpet-bag incendiaries and negro murderers
the comfort and encouragement of his SYM
pathy, we may reasonably anticipate an in
crease of the outbreaks.