The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1877-07-19

always ready to vote for any meas
ure that would oppress end enslave
his so>called constituents; his hostility
was unconcealed, and he Lost no op-
portunity to do them injury.
HIS DRsoENT UPON LOUISIANA.
The agricultural and commercial
wealth of Louisiana made here a
strong temptation to the carpet-bag-
gers. Those vultures snuffed the
prey from afar; and, as soon as the
war was over, they swooped down
upon her in flocks that darkened. the
air. The State was delivered into
their hands by the military authori--
ties; but the officers imposed some
restraints upon their lawless cupidity
They hailed with delight the advent
of negro suffrage, because to them it
was merely a legalized method of
stufing the ballot box, and they stuff
fed it. Thenceforth, and down to a
very recent period, they gorged
themselves without let or hindrance.
The depredations they committed
were frightful. They appropriated,
on one pretense and another, what
ever they could lay their hands on
and then pledged to themselves tho
credit of the State for unaccounted
millions more. The public securities
ran down to half price, and still they
put their fraudulent bonds on the
market and sold them for what they
would fetch. Trio owners of the best
real estate III town or country wore
utterly impoverished, because the
burdens upon it were heavier than
tho rents would discharge. During
the last ten years the city of New
Orleans paid in the form of direct
taxes more than the estimated valuo
of all the property within her limits,
and still has a debt of equal amount
unpaid. 1t is not likoly that other
parts of the State suffered less. The
extent of their spoliations can hardly
be calculated, but the testimony of
the carpet baggers themselves against
one another, the reports Of commit
tees sent by Congress to Investigate
the subject, and other information
from sources entirely authentic, mako
it safe to say that general confa-
grafton, sweeping over all the State
from one end to the other, and de-
stroying every building and every
article of personal property, would
have been visitation of mercy in
comparison to the curse of such a
government. .....
THE INvENTIvENEss OF sCoUNDRELrsM.
This may seem at first blush like
gross exaggeration, because it is
worse than anything that misrule ev
er did before. The. greediest of Ro-
mau proconsuls LETT something to the
country they wasted; the Norman did
not strip the Saxon quite to the skin;
the Puritans under Cromwell did not
utterly dosolate Ireland. Their ra-
pacity was confined to che visible
things which they could handle and:
use. They could not take what did
not exist. But the American carpet
bagger has an invention unknown to
those old fashioned robbers, which
increased his stealing power as much
as the steam engine adds to the me-
chanical force of mere natural mus
clos. Lie makes negotiable bonds of
the State, signs and seals them ssac-
cording to the forms ofthe law" sells
them, converts the pr roceeds to his
own use, and then defiJs justice "to
go behind the returns" By this de-
vice his felonious fingers are made
long enough to reach into tho pock-
cts of posterity; he lays his lien on
property yet uncreated; he antici>
pates the labor of coming ages and
appropriates the fruits of it in ADJ
vance; he coins the industry of future