The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1876-04-20

Now, Mr. President, if the gentlemen in
this Convention. a large number of them
members of the legislature, who cast their
votes for these Judges, are ready oplace their
hands upon their mouths and cry "guilty"
before Governor Chamberlain, it is their
funeral, not mine. So far as know this
Legislature, it is not to be bought on those
terms. The Legislature and not the Gov
ernor is the judge of the judges they elect.
1t is neither his business nor mine; and
when they attempt to say that because the
Governor says that a man is not moral or
learned enough for judge that he can with
hold his commission and enforce his arbitra-
ry imperial power to o tyrannical extent,
they take ground that cannot endorse.
The Ne,ss and Courier to-day says "the
triumph of the thieves" is because we placed
in the chair the gentleman who now occu-
pies that position (Swails) instead of Mr..
Chamberlain. deny that Governor Cham
berlain, with his small band of adherents,
constitutes all the honor and honesty Of the
Republican party. have stated these ques-
tions very briefly. And now do you ask why
I have considered this contest Important
This Presidential election is one which will
be in the North, Middle States and the West,
fierce and tiolieht-bht in this contest for
Republicanism in the South 1t Is life and
death. Defeat is death, both political, and,
may say, physical. 1t is life and death
struggle. II
was candidate for GovernorP He replied,
am candidate for nothing under God Al
mighty's Heaven I have yielded my name
to every man in this Convention who desired
to run for position. would rather be
constable than Governor of South Carolina.
have impugned no mans motives here.
I have not charged that the Governor hos
intended to destroy the Republican party,
but say that the result Of his conduct has
been to this end, and such IN election as is
proposed here will be to give you moth
ing but blood and corpses. am not ready
for such o sacrifice for such results, if tho
| gentlemen are. I wash my hands of it.
Thank God, can do a noble act without
being paid for it. If my friend thinks he
cannot, God help him, l am sorry for him.
lCheers.
GOVERNOR CHAMBERLAIN's REPLY.
The fierce arraignment of the Governor
failed to disconcert him, it appears, and
he made the annexed earnest defence Of
his administration, at the same time ex-
coriating Judge Carpenter without stint.
He said:
Mr.. Chairman and Gentlemen Of the Consen-
ton:
Frequent allusion has been made during
the sessions of this convention to charac-
teristic which I am reputed to possess of
GOODNESS. While sometimes fail to recog-
nize the pictures that are drawn of me by
others, when am pronounced q peculiarly
cool man, I sometimes feel that nothing
could be further from the truth than that
statement respecting me. But I am happy
to say, that as / stand here tonight in the
midst of my old Republican friends of South
Carolina, the touch of whose elbow have
never failed to feel since 1858, feel as cool
and as calm as May morning, and as ready
to meet the charges that have been brought
against me, as l shall be to meet the sweet
kisses of my wife and children this morn
ing. Immense npplause.l 1t has been
pronounced here that the issue is of party
fealty. The charge is brought by one whose
lips ought forever to be sealed against the
charge of party fealty against any man that
charged by my good friend from Beaufort,
who nominated me, with want of fidelity to
the Republican party, could have bowed
with humility to the hand of chastisement
Of even my friends in whose eyes I now
look, because the record of those men shows
that no matter what difference of opinion
there may be, they have still fought within
the lines of the Republican party and under
the banner of equal rights to all men. ZAP
plause.]
am reminded tonight of the only other
occasion when I have had the pleasure Of
measuring swords with him who now assails
me. remember that in 1870, when the Re-
publican party was assailed, when the strong
and vigorous hand was clutched at the throat
Of the Republican party, I was commissioned
by the Republican party to 80 TO Chester, in
this State, and see if I, with my friends,
could unloose the death-gnp which he had
fastened upon it. went to Chester. / met
of South Carolina, covering with words that
have never yet soiied my lips, and with in
vective and epithets which no reporter has
ever yet been skillful enough to take down;
covering, say, the Republican party with
reproaches and curses too deep to be repeated
here; I say I found there performing that
task for the Republican party of South Car
olina, the gentleman who now comes into
Republican convention of South Carolina
for the first time in his life, and calls me to
account for my party fealty. There are
other incidents which should have taught
the gentleman from Edgefeld to make his
attack upon me at another point than party
fealty. He went through the Democratic
campaign of 1870, and what was the result
of that campaign? The Republican party
triumphed over all its enemies, but along
the track Of those upper countiesEwas it
and Lancaster and Fairfield, and Union,
and Spartanburg, that the gentleman from
Edgefeld sowed in that campaign those
dragon teeth that sprang up into the armed
and masked Ku Klu1 at night?
For eight long months succeeding that
campaign the torpid arm of the government
waited to bring help to the people whose
cabins lighted up the heavens at midnight,
and whose cold bodies weltered on the earth
beneath the stab and bullet Of the Ku KluI.
When at last relief came, and when in this
very building the perpetrators Of these great
wrongs at last stood face to face with justice,
it was my privilege and honor to appear in
behalf of the government in the prosecution
Of these great criminals against the civili1a-
ton that had sprung up from the teachings
who were with him in that campaign. I
represented the government, and / well re-
member that when in the midst of one OF
the most critical trials, the first that was to
establish the question whether we could
prove enough to bring those red-handed as
sassins to justice, among the witnesses called
from afar, brought here to give testimony
that should save from punishment the Ku
Klu1, is the Hon. R. B. Carpenter. And
here, fellow Republicans, herein South Car
olina, is the record of the man who tells us
tonight that if we trust those who have
never yet betrayed us, if we do not follow
his teachings, desert our old friends and
leaders, God help US. God help US, fellow.
Republicans, God help us, if we are not yet
sufficiently grown to manhood and the estate
of man to be able to understand that moth
ing but motives which have little to do with
the prosperity of the Republican party ami
mate the breast of him who utters such
teachings here tonight.
Party fealtyl Oh, have sometimes felt
that was the veriest of slaves on the face
of the earth have sometimes felt as If
physical letters were upon me, because I
was brought up at my fathers knee and
teachers side to love those principles which