The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1877-05-17
GOVERNOR OHAMBERLAIN'S
ADDRESS,

To the Republicans of South Carolina:
BY your choice I was made Governor
of this State in 1874. At the election
on the 18th of November last | was
again by your votes elected to the same
office. My title to the Office, upon ev-
cry legal and moral ground, is to-day
as clear and perfect. BY the recent
decision and action Of the President OF
the United States, find myself unable
longer to maintain my official rights
with the prospect of final success, and
| hereby announce to you that | am
unwilling to prolong q struggle which
can only bring further suffering upon
those who engage in it. In announc-
ing this conclusion, it is my duty to
say for you that the Republicans of
South Carolina entered upon their re-
cent political struggle for the mainte-
nance of their political and civil rights
constituting beyond question q large
majority of the lawful voters of the
State. You allied yourselves with that
political party whose central and in
spring principle has hitherto been the
civil and rG3itical freedom of all men
under the constitution and laws of our
country. BY heroic efforts and sacri-
fees, which the just verdict of history
will rescue from the cowardly scorn
now cast upon them by political place
men and traders, you secured the elect
oral vote of South Carolina for Hayes
and Wheeler. In accomplishing this
result you became. the victims of every
form of persecution and injury. From
authentic evidence, it is shown that no
less than 100 of your number were MUIR
dered because they were faithful to
their principles, and exercised the
rights solemnly guaranteed to them by
the nation. You were denied employ
ment, driven from your homes, robbed
of the earnings of years of honest in
dustry, hunted for your lives like wild
beasts, and your families outraged and
scattered for no offense except your
peaceful and firm determination to ex-
ercise your political rights. You
trusted, as you had a right to trust,
that, if by such efforts you established
the lawful supremacy of your political
party in the nation, the government of
the United States, in discharge of it's
constitutional duty, would protect the
lawful government Of the State from
overthrow at the hands of your politi-
cal enemies. From causes patent to
all men, and questioned by none who
regard truth, you have been unable to
overcome the unlawful combinations
and obstacles which have opposed the
practical supremacy of the government
which your voses have established.
For many weary months you have
waited for your deliyerance while the
long struggle for the Presidency was
in progress. You were exhorted by
every representative and organ Of the
national Republican party to keep your
allegiance true to that party, in order
that your deliverance from the hands
Of your oppressors might be certain
and complete. Not the faintest whis-
per of a possibility OF disappointment
in these hopes and promises ever
reached yean while the struggle. was
pending, To-doy, April 10, 1877, by
order of the President whom your
votes alone rescued from oyerWhelm-
ing defeat, the governmental the Uni
ted States abandons you deliberately
withdraws from you it's support, with
the full knowledge that the lawful
government of the State will be speed
lily overthroWn by new Interpretation
OF the Constitution of the United
States, at variance alike with the prac-
tees of the government and with the
decisions of the Supreme Court. The
Executive of the United States evades
the duty of ascertaining which of two
rival State governments is the lawful
one, and by the withdrawal of the
troops now protecting the State from
domestic violence abandons the lawful
State government to struggle with an
insurrectionary force too powerful to
be resisted. The grounds of policy