New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-05-07
RnERRnN INGENUITY.

The South Carolina Bourbons are to he
credited with the invention OF the most perfect
system for the suppression of the popular Will
known to the world. Their new registry law Is
so ingenously contrlved that majority OF the
people OF the State are placed hopelessly I'D the
mower of the minority. A Charleston CORE
spondent gives in letter which VIC publish to
dav q clear account of the workings of this
law. and we commend it to all readers who
wish 10 comprehend accurately the political
methods prevailing in this representative
Southern State. The South Carolina Bourbons
experimental for many years before they mt
upon this perfect plan. They began by shoot
ing negroes openly few days before election,
and by bulldozing them so thorpuGhly III other
ways that few of them ventured near enough
TO the polls to get within range. Then, when
this style of campaigning attracted uniavorable
comment they organized red-shirt clubs anu
rife clubs, aud by making show OF force
they frightened the negroes sufficiently to
make shooting unnecessary. When TINS, 100,
became unpopular, the began to stun the bal
lot-boxes with tissue ballots and continued to
do so until the suffers, in their enthusiasm, so
oyerdd the business as to make the frauds APP
parent to all observers and put the suffers them
selves in imminent peril of sojOurn III the
penitentiary.
Then came the invention OF the present sys-
tenn. which our correspondent describes.
Summed up briefly 1t is a registry law which al
lows a voter to register only once during his
lifetime, and doprves him of his vote per-
mancnty if he cannot produce at each election
the certificate of his registration. Those are
the principal provisions, but there are others
equally unprecedented and unjustfiable. A
citizen convicted OF petty larceny, the smallest
of known offences, is deprived for life of his
right TO vote. Then the ballots for State
officers must all be deposited in separate boxes,
and those cast in the wrong boxes are not to be
counted. Not only do the election officers, who
are all Bourbons. refuse to tell the illiterate
voter which boxes his different ballots should
be put into, but they also refuse to allow any
body else to tell him. Tins in the first place
the negro is required to have his name regis
tered and to be able to produce Lis certificate.
Obstacles of all kinds were put IN the way OF
his registration, and il is easy TO see dozen
ways by which he may lose or Ge deprived of
his certificate. If he gets safely beyond these
obstacles, tlfen he must take his chance Of get
ting his ballots into the right boxes. lie Is not
allowed to have even this slight chance with
ont ilnpedilnent Tue Bourbon chivalry go
early to the polls, stand in line there, and make
all the negroes form a separate line behind
them. Then they consume rs much time as
possible in voting, and often before the h lad of
the negro line reaches the boxes the time to
close tho polls has arrived.
1t is not necessary to comment upon such an
infamous system as this sef-eyidcntly is. IL
was concOcted to suppress the colored vote al
most totally, and it has been shown to be equal
to the end proposed There is no occasion for
partisan denunciatOn of it. Tho subject rises
above mere partisanship and becomes one OF
the maintenance of the Constitution and the
laws. The people of America have given the
negroes the right of suffrage. II is too late now
to argue whether the giving of it was wise or
unwise. They have it, and the Constitution
DEGREES that they shall he projected in the exer-
else of it, The BOurbons of South Carolina
defy the Constitution and say the negro shall
not vote. What are the people Of the rest of
the country going to 10 about it Shall the
laws prevail everywhere except in the SouthP