The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-05-11
BOURBON METHODS.
South Cardinals Unique Registry Law-An
Act to Disfranchise Voters

Charleston Correspondence New York Tribune.
The registry law of South Carolina is, per-
haps the boldest attempt that was ever made
under popular government to disfranchise
large masses of citizens and place the polit-
ical powers of a majority in the hands of
minority permanently. In order to ac-
complish so difficult task it was necessary
that the right of the elector to vote should be
made to depend upon some condition over
which the minority had full control. The
registry law makes it a condition of voting
that the voter shall have in his possession
certificate of a certain particular form, losing
which he loses his rights as a voter. Every
voting citizen of South Carolina carries the
charter of his liberties in his pocket, unless
he has safe or an old stocking in which he
can hide it at home. If he loses this paper
he loses with it all the powers that
a republican system of government confers
upon a citizen for the protection of his civil
liberties a petty larceny may deprive a
voter of his whole political capacity. If he
sells his certificate he parts with his political
manhood This scheme was designed by
the successors OF the Calhouns, the Rrestons
and the Haynes, to take advantage of the
illiteracy, thoughtlessness and cupidity of
the negro, in order to strip him of political
rights that were acquired at the cost to the
nation of the great war.
The registration law is not a temporary
provision for single biennial election, but
is permanent system that must stand until
the law is repealed or modified According to
this law, from and after the day on which
the registration books were closed, which
was in the summer of 1882, there exists no
means by which citizen entitled to vote at
afterward acquire the right to vote. Those
who may subsequently acquire such right,
either by coming of age or by the residence
of one year in the State, can claim registra-
ton under it, but not such as had the legal
right to registration at that day, and, by acct
dent or neglect, failed to claim it, 1t is true
that this want of authority to add to the reg
istered names after the day of the closing of
registration has been disregarded by the su-
pervisors of registration, who were all OF one
political party, and many names have been
added since that time But every name so
added is that of political partisan of the
officers, and no negro or white Independent
has been able to secure registration since the
date above mentioned.
Thousands of these registration certificates
have already been stolen, lost or destroyed,
and before the next election in 1884 the
right to vote for all time while the present
law stands will be lost to large proportion
of tine negro population of the State. The
registry act makes no provision and confers
no authority to replace lost or destroyed
certificate. 1t allows mutilated certificate
to be exchanged for new one, but unless the
old one is surrendered to the registering Off
GERS no new certificate can be issued. In
order to embarrass and disfranchise the
working people who hire out their labor, and
thus frequently move their residence from
place to place, certificate, which is required
to state the place of residence of the
hnONTnaC ha
changes his residence. To produce this effect
1t is not necessary that he should move from
one county to another or even from one
polling precinct or ward to another but if
he goes from one place of residence to an
other in the same polling precinct or ward
even though he may pass from the place of
one employer to that of another immedi-
ately adjoining the former, the charter of
his political liberties is gone and he must
seek new certificate, stating his new place
of residence.
Thus the favored classes of South Carolina,
who as the possessors of its political author
ity are the protectors of the weak, are con-
yerted into ravenous wolves, devouring and
destroying the liberties of the poorer classes.
both black and white. This is Bourbonism
In South Carolina.
With anything like a free vote and an hon
est count South Carolina will in 1884 cast its
electoral votes for the Republican presiden-
tial nominee, and this fact is so pa tent to the
Bourbon managers that they are striving in
every possible way to interpose obstacles to
the non-ful6llment of that end and the
violent opposition of the newspapers to the
attempt of the national government to bring
violators OF the election laws to Justice is
part of scheme to hold the State for the
Bourbons by intensifying feeling between
the races and keeping the management of the
election in the hands of the present State
government, which has so shamefully vio-
lated the rights of clear majority OF the
people.