New-York tribune., 1878-07-23
MORE AMNESTY.

A cordial appeal is made by the state OF
South Carolina TO her exiled citizens TO cCme
home, and be comfortable, and vote the Dem
ocratic ticket. The press heTads the call, and
the Governor gives it an official sanction.
Some of the nOblest and most public spirited
sons of South Carolina have been virtually
banished by q tyrannical Federal Govern
ment, which threatens them with indictments
for prOwling around by night with masks on,
To hang niegers and burn niger churches
Others have fed from the muiOns Of a brutal
Excise law, which strikes at the dearest priyi-
leges of a Southern citizen, 10y requiring him to
pay for his whskey. As The Charleston heTS
and Courier remarks, "the involuntary absence
"of the Ku Klux refugees and the hunting down
"of the distillers in the mountains have
caused South Carolina a great deal OF loss and
annoyance, and "it is the ann of Governor
" Hampton to change all this" Let the boys
come home. The Governor will see that they
are not molested.
We do not understand that Governor Hamp-
ton proposes to set the United States at def
ance,-at least just yet. He seems TO depend
upon the efficacy of petitions for general
amnesty. He suggests that all these old o.
tenders might as well be released from prCse-
cuti0n, on condition of a promise to abandon
their illegal and criminal proceedings; and he
is plaiuly of the opinion that the United States
would be the gamer by such a
bargain, since the men never could be stopped
until they chose to stop Of their own accord,
resembling in this the NewYOrk manufac-
turers of stenches, who are periodically in
dicted convicted and sentenced 10 promise 10
90 away somewhere which they never do.
But when the Governor undertakes to give
"assurances not only 10 the runaway "mO0n-
" sinners" but to the absent assassins also,
that if they come back they shall not be mo-
Tested, he presumes rather too far upon the
good nature Of the Government. First of all,
the Government will doubtless insist upon the
recognition OF the authority Of the United
States Courts in the ease of the four revenue
officers charged with murder committed i'll
the execution of their duty. These men,,
being attacked by a gang of moonshiners
whom they were seeking to arrest, shot one
of THEN assailants in self-defence and a State
Judge of South Carolina holds them for muir
der, refusing to let them be tried in the Fed
eral courts, where the cause undoubtedly be-
longs This, as the Commissioner OF Internal
| Revenue observes. involves a question of the
" sovereignty OF TIE united states ); ana so
long as South Carolina stands in her old att-
| tude of rebellion it is not at all likely that
! Governor Hampton viii be allowed to guaran-
| tee immunity for any offences against the
| Federal statutes.
The affair of the revenue officers in South
| Carolina is not the only indication we have
seen of the reviving spirit of clustering self
assertion which in all the Bourbon States is only
one step removed from open revolt. 1t was
| the boast of the old slave States that their
own laws and customs were superior to Federal
enactments, and it took four years Of bloody
war to convince them of the contrary. Has
| that hard lesson been so soon forgOtten2 Ii
is only the other day that Virginia member
of Congress had the effrontery to challenge a
citizen Of Washington to fight a duel, aud
| now, when the belligeront legislator is re-
minded that he has committed a criminal Of
fence, the county prosecutor rusies into Print
to disclaim any intention of instituting pro-
ceedings, and to resent, as an imputatIon upon
his character as o gentleman, the suspicion
that he means TO perform his sworn duty
under the law. All these incidents are signif-
cant. They show us the South coming TO the
front again, insolent, oyerbearing, tyrannical,