The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1899-01-13
SOUTH CAROLINA LEGISLATuEE
Begins Its Session In Columbia Governor
Ellerbe's Message.

Begins Its Session In Columbia Governor
Ellerbe's Message.
The general assembly of South
Carolina convened in annual session
at Columbia Tuesday. There are 80
new members in the body.
The supreme court has decided that
the formation of Lee county is uncon-
stitutional, and two members were
seated pending a decision as to their
right to sit as members.
In the house the former Speaker,
Frank B. Gary, was unanimously re-
elected.
Governor Ellerbe, in his message,
took occasion to refer to matter now
very much in the public eye, the sub
ject of lynching. He says at the out
set, During the last several years
there has been apparently increasing
disposition among us to attempt the
righting of real or supposed wrongs by
the law-breaking practice of lynching."
He says it means the abolition of the
regular order of justice and this is the
first step in the destruction of the So
cial order
Concluding, he says, the remedy
suggests itself. "See to it, as con-
servators of the peace of the state, as
makers of it's laws, as the guardians of
it's sacred honor, that it's laws are so
enacted and so administered that con-
viction and punishment shall follow
crime with the certainty that links
effects to causes. 1t is possible, it is
necessary in more protection of society
and vindication of justice that a stop
be put to those legal bubbles, those
astute technicalities, that vice encour-
aging dilatoriness in the administra-
tion of justice which tends not so
much to the protection of individual
rights as to the subversion of the
rights of society and to utter loss of
confidence in the stability and even in
the possibility of government.
1.-The officers of the law must be
chosen for probity and for courage;
and it should become of itself high
crime and misdemeanor for sheriff or
constable to allow prisoner to be
taken by violence from his hands even
though his own own blood should
have to be shed to protect the Grim
inal.
''The an officer charged with the
""'H VI VI
prisoner should suffer him to be seiz-
ed aid snatched from the hands of the
representative of the states power
and sovereignty should constitute for
teiture in itself of his office, for it is
confession Of indisposition or inability
to perform the high duty committed
to him. Such officers will never cor
rect lawlessness, for they are either in
sympathy with it or they are afraid
of it."
GAS additional measure of restraint,
it would he we'll, and I recommend
that any county in which the crime of
lynching is committed. shall be liable
to the heirs Of the victim of the lynch
ers i'll the sum of five thousand dol
lars, and that men who shall be con-
victed of participation in lynching
shall be deprived of the right to vote
or hold Office in this state"
He dealt with the ever interesting
subject Of the dispensary in extenso
He recommends the submission of the
question of dispensary or prohibition
to the people for n popular vote and
letting each county decide on which it
will adopt. High license az factor in
the vote is omitted. though it was gen
orally expected. The laws delay is
vigorously handled in what he says
about the courts of the state.