Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1900-05-12

Chamberlain's claim, and the troops
held the state house from the first
week in December until after Hayes
was inaugurated in March, following.
There was dual government and
dual legislature but Hampton's gov
ernment alone received any money
from the Taxpayers, and the settlement
of Hayes's title to the presidency by
the Electoral Commission carried with
it the agreement to withdraw the
troops. Then the carpet.bag govern
ment collapsed in a night, and each
thief who could get away hurriedly
left the state. The work of rehabili-
tation and restoration was slow. The
states credit was for the time ruined
but with labor and patience order soon
came out of chaos, the debt was refund
ed, and all legal obligations met honest
judges took the place of bribe-takers
who had disgraced the bench. There
were so many indictments in the state
courts against the county officers, leg
islators, and other Republicans, that by
arrests and designations nearly all the
Offices were soon in the bands of de.
cent white men. There were hum
dreds of indictments in the United
States courts for riot, murder, intini-
dation, etc., and finally an understand
ing was reached that The whites would
make an exchange of prisoners, 80 to
speak, and all prosecutions on both
sides were dropped.
In the campaign of 1878 there was
a more or less determined effort on the
part of the negroes to regain their lost
power; but the whites swept everything
by the same methods used in 1875 in
a modified degree. 1t did not require
such drastic measures to hold the
state us it had to capture it. In 1880
the Negroes made a feeble spasmodic
attempt, and then wit. one enactrileIt
te :;ccglstration law and the Eight
box law" which was modified form
of educational qualification, all organ
lied efforts to overthrow the white or
Democratic party ceased and from
that time until 1895, when the new
constitution requiring an educational
qualification for suffrage was adopted,
the Negro vote ceased to be factor in
South Carolina politics. Very many
of them never took the trouble to 90 to
the polls at all, and when they did 60
it made no difference. In 1876 the
whites had voted, along with the Ne
groes, for a constitutional two-mills
school tax. In 1895 the convention,
composed of 154 whites and six Me-
groes, increased this to three mills.
South Carolina now leads the south in
education and manufactures. It's credit
is such that its ~ per cent. bonds are
at 12O. Its negro population is as
happy and contented and as prosper
ons as that in any other state in the
Union.
The suppression ofthe colored vote,
first by force and fraud and later by
constitutional methods, has been the
subject of much adverse criticism by
those who knew nothing about the
horrors of carpet-bag rule but those
who participated in the struggle to
wrest the state from the band of rob-
bers who had used the ignorant and
debased Negro vote to waste our sub
stance aud destroy our civilization,
have no apologies to make, and will
leave to the impartial historian of the
future the question as to whether the
end justified the means. The people
of South Carolina do not doubt what
the verdict will be, neither do they
care. BENJAMIN r. TILLMAN.