The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1877-07-13
THE ELECTORAL FRAUD.
JUDGE ]. s. BLACK, EXCoRIATEs THE IN
FAMOUS COMMISSION.

In the North american RecieW for July,
Judge jeremiah S. Black appears as the con-
tributor of an article entitled "The Elector-
| al Conspiracy which is by all odds the
most complete, eloquent and scathing ex-
posure that has yet been made of the fraud
by which Rutherford b. Hayes was foisted
into the Presidential chair. We regret that
our space will not permit us to reprint it in
full and that we must confine ourselves to
the most striking passages.
After briefly advertng to the indignation
| felt by honest men throughout the country
at the great outrage upon the rights of
the people, Judge Black proceeds to depict
the condition of affairs in the State of Lou
isiana previous to the Presidential election.
First, he describes the carpet-bagger
WHAT THE CARPET.BAGGER Is.
The people would not have been wholly
| crushed, either by the soldier or the negro,
| if both had not been used to fasten upon
them the domination of another class of
persons whose rule was altogether unendura-
ble These we call carpet-baggers, not be-
| cause the word is descriptive or euphonious,
but because they have no other name where
| by they are known among the children of
men. They were unprincipled adventures,
who sought their fortunes in the South by
plundering the dsarmed and defenceess
people some of them were the dregs of
| the Federal army-the meanest of the camp
followers; many were fugitives from Northern
| justice the best of them were those who
went down after the peace, ready for any
deed of shame that was safe and profitable
These, combining with few treacherous
''scalawags" and some leading negroes to
serve as decoys for the rest, and backed by
the power of the general Government, be-
came the strongest body of thieves that ever
pillaged people. Their moral grade was
far lower, and yet they were much more
powerful, than the robber bands that infest-
ed Germany after the close of the Thirty
Years war They swarmed over all the
States from the Potomac to the Gulf, and
settled in hordes, not with intent to remain
there, but merely to feed on the substance of
a PROSTATE and defenceless people They
took whatever came within their reach, in
truded themselves into all private corpora
tions, assumed the functions of all offices,
including the courts of justice, and in many
places they even run the churches" BY
force and fraud they either controlled all
elections or else prevented elections from be-
ing held. They returned sixty of themselves
to one Congress, and ten or twelve of the
most ignorant and venal among them were
at the same time thrust into the Senate.
This false representation of people by
strangers and enemies who had not even a
bona fide residence among them was the
bitterest of all mockeries. There was no
show of truth or honor about it. The pre-.
tended representative was always ready to
vote for any measure that would oppress and
enslave his so-caled constituents his hos
tility was unconcealed, and he lost no oppor-
tunity to do them inquiry.
HIS DESCENT UPON LOUISIANA.
The agricultural and commercial wealth OF
Louisiana made her a strong temptation to
the arpet-baggers. Those vultures snutfed
the prey from afar and, as soon as the war
was over, they swooped down upon her in
tocks that darkened the air. The State was
delivered into their hands by the military
authorities; but the officers imposed some re-
straints upon their lawless cupidity They
hailed with delight the advent of negro suf-
frage, because to them it was merely le-
galized method of stutfing the ballou-box
and they stuffed it. Thenceforth, and down
to very recent period, they gorged them.
selves without let or hindrancc.
The depredations they committed were
frightful. They appropriated, on one pre-.
tence and another, whatever they could lay
their hands on, aud then pledged to them.
selves the credit of the State for uncounted
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. The own.
ers of the best real estate in town or country
were utterly impoverished because the bur
dens upon it were heavier than the rents
would discharge. During the last ten years
the city of New Orleans paid in the form Of
direct taxes more than the estimated value
of all the property within her limits, and
still has debt of equal amount unpaid II
is not likely 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 committees sent by
Congress TO investigate the subject, ant
other information from sources entirely au
thentic, make il safe to say that genera
confagraton, sweeping over all the State
from one end to the other, and destroying
every building and every article of persona
property, would have been a visitation o
mercy in comparison to the curse of sucf
a Government.
THE INvENTIyENEss OF sCoUNDRELIsM.
This may seem at first blush like gross ex
aggeration, because it is worse than anything
that misrule ever did before. The greedies
of Roman proconsuls left something to th,
provinces they wasted the Norman did no
strip the Saxon quite to the skin the Puri
tans under Cromwell did not utterly desolat
Ireland. Their rapacity was confined to tn
visible things which they could presently
handle and use. They could not take wha
did not exist. But the American carpet
bagger has an invention unknown to thos
old-fashioned robbers, which increases hi
stealing power as much as the steam engin
adds to the mechanical force ofmere natura
muscles. He makes negotiable bonds of tn
State, signs and seals them according t
the FERNS of law, sells them, converts tn
proceeds to his own use, and then defie
. justice "to go behind the returns" By thi
9 device his ielonious fingers are made Ion
enough toreach into the pockets of postert!
| he laws his lien on prOnerty vet uncreatel