The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1876-03-23
THE BELKNAP PROSECUTION.
JAMES A. HOYT,
County Chairman.

1t Will not pe surprising 10 our readers,
after knowing that the administration
secured the acquittal of Babcock, to learn
that an attempt has been made by the
President and Attorney General to secure
immunity for. the criminal Belknap,
whom public opinion has already con-
demned upon his self-confessed guilt.
The statute makes the party giving a
bribe equally as guilty as the one reciv-
ing it. and of course the rigid applica-
tion of the law in this respect will pre-
vent aay disclosures of fraud, for in the
light of confessions the party exposing
any act of corruption can be convicted
and punished. Hence, he is equally as
much interested in observing silence as
the official villain. A different mode of
procedure has, however, been observed
in the practice of our courts, which is to
allow the party turning States evidence
to escape without punishment for the
sake of convicting the greater culprit
and preventing the recurrence of crime.
President Grant and the Attorney Gen
eral, however, have decided to abrogate
this custom, and intimated that all par
ties should be prosecuted to the extent of
the law. Immediately upon the an
nouncement of this determination, the
witness Marsh, upon whose testimony
the conviction of Belknap depended,
feeling that he had confessed crime
which would place him in the peniten-
tiary, fed to Canada, thereby leaving the
courts and the Senate powerless to con-
vict the guilty official. 1t has also de-
tered witnesses from giving testimony
relative to frauds in other departments,
and has in great measure throttled the
investigations which threatened to be-
come SO damaging to the administration
and to the. Republican party. The At
torney General also endeavored to get
possession of the evidence taken before
the Congressional committee relative to
the Belknap investigation, on the pre-
tence that he wished to hand out indict-
ments against him. The Democratic
committee, however, knew too much
about biz proceedings in the Babcock
trial to be duped by him, and very quiet
ly informed him that they preferred con-
dueting the investigation in their own
way, the plain inference being that they
did not desire his assistance. The House
of Representatives, which is Democratic,
thereupon passed joint resolution, ex-
empting from punishment, -other than
impeachment, on account of confessions
every person who informed upon another
who had been guilty of official miscon-
duct. This bill now goes to the Repub-
ican Senate, and it remains to be seen
whether it is in favor of the punishment
and exposure of official corruption, or
whether it wishes to assist in covering
up and hiding the shortcomings of the
rascals it has placed in power. The
country will judge its intentions by the
action upon this bill.
The turn which the prosecution of
Belknap has taken is an anomalous one,
and shows how the party in power use the
law to subvert public justice wherever a
person of influential position is likely to
become the subject of prosecution and
punishment. 1t was doubtless indiscreet
that the investigating committee should
have released from subpoena the man
who would be necessary to a conviction
upon the impeachment trial in this case
before it was finally disposed of in the
Senate; but it is an objectionable out
rage for the administration to drive the
witness from the country by threatening
him with prosecution in order to give
: immunity to, or perhaps secure an acquit-
tai of Bslknap. This course of policy is
not chargeable to the President or any
one man, but is the action of the Repub-
lican party if 1t is permitted to succeed,
for the Senate has only to pass the House
resolution to secure thorough sitting of
this and many other frauds in the admin
istration of the government. The effort
now making to check investigation is on
behalf of the entire party, for enough
has already transpired to show that many
leading Republican Senators and Repre-
sentatiYes are concerned in frauds and