The New York herald., 1876-07-17
How the South Should Punish Out
RACES.

RACES.
If the white people of South Carolina are
wise they will not rest until the scoundrels
who shot down and, it is now said, mutilated
unarmed prisoners at Hamburg the other
day are caught, tried and hanged. 1t is
perfectly true that there are bullies and
brutes in every community, and that riots
have occurred in Northern as we'll as South
ern States. But it is perfectly true, too. that
snch brutalities as disgrace South Carolina
and Georgia in this Hamburg affair are pun
ished in the North; that they arouse in the
most vigorous manner the public spirit of
the decent people, and that the community
here in such cases, demands and insists upon
prompt and stern justice. We wait to see if
the respectable white people of South Caro-
lima will do their plain duty in this matter.
Mr. Rainey, colored Congressman from
South Carolina, respectable and honest as
well as able man, made q spirited ap-
peal in the House of Representatives
upon this outrage on Saturday. He
was listened to with respect and at
tention and his words ought to bring the
blush of shame to the cheeks of the decent
white people in the State he represents. Mr..
Rainey is of opinion that the only remedy
or preventive of such brutalities as that at
! Hamburg is the constant presence of
United States troops. We do not agree with
him but we solemnly warn the South Caro-
lima whites that if they allow such things to
go unpunished, if they sit down and fold
their hands and say, "Good enough for the
niggers," if they make themselves the allies
of the lawless part of their race, and encour-
| age by their silence and inaction such saw
age violence then the time is not very far off
when it will be they and not the blacks
who will call for United States troops
and when those troops will be urgently
called to protect them from the negroes.
Nor will any right-minded man anywhere
feel very sorry for them when that day
comes, as it certainly will if they
do not show some sense of the hor-
ror and detestation in which people who
60 to church and pretend to be Christians
and civilized people ought to hold such acts.
They sowing the wind, and they are
morally certain to reap the whirlwind
The HERALD, as is we'll known to it's read
ers, has not upheld the so-called carpet-bag
rule in the Southern States it has urged that
the interference of the federal government
with troops in those States is unwise, and it
believes that the people Of each of those
States, of different races ought to be left
face to face with each other to settle their
own affairs. We believe so still, and we
shall continue TO believe SO, even if the ne
groes in South Carolina, goaded to despera-
ton by injustice and outrage, shall begin to
assert their manhood and shoot back That
is what they ought to do and what newt
ably they will do. The Southern whites gen.
orally despise the negroes because they are
in the main quiet. docile, harmless race
Twenty of us can drive off two hundred
niggers any time" is common saying
among Southern roughs, and it is a lament
able fact And so the decent white men of
the South are but too apt to leave the negro
to the white roughs, just as General Butler.
who we suppose calls himself gentle
man." is reported to have left his prisoners
in the hands of the mob he had headed and
went home.
We warn the Southern whites that such an
occurrence as that at Hamburg is dangerous
to them, not because of the riot, but because
they, the decent part of the population, have
not public spirit, humanity and Christian
feeling enough to stand up for the outraged
law and to demand and insist on the prompt
and relentless punishment of the MUIR
derers and of the bullies, miscalled
gentlemen" who were concerned in
bringing on the trouble. What do we
see in South Carolina? A cruel and
brutal outrage perpetrated worthy of
the Sioux; one of the foremost and ablest
Southern democratic journals, the Charles
ton Ne1s and Courier, speaking out manfully
about it, and yet the white community of
the neghborhood sitting tamely by, un-
moved by sense of justice or feeling of
humanity to hunt down or arrest the white
brutes who were guilty Of these crimes. We
do not wonder that Mr.. Rainey thinks fed
eral troops should be sent down there. We
are not surprised at the report that Cover
nor Chamberlain means to ask for troops.
Yet we trust he will not. What he ought
to do as Governor of the State, is to occupy
Hamburg and it's neighborhood with the
militia of the State; and employ them-if the
public sentiment of the neighborhood is
inert-to hunt down and capture those who
were concerned in these murders, and all
who aided and encouraged them. He would do
the State great service if he had the nerve
to do this. He would show the roughs and
the gentlemen too, that Justice is sure
and swift, and that it is not safe to 'kill
niggers"
There is one State in the South so quiet
and peaceable now that We never hear of it,
Yet only two or three years ago it wasa ''hell