Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1902-03-05


reconstruction policy. He was
known as liberal Southerner, who
desired to heal the wounds of war
and restore the country to peace, but
the more radical Southern element
opposed his election and selected
Gen. Wade Hampton, then the most
popular of South Carolina soldiers,
to make the contest against Orr. 1t
was very earnest battle between
these two favorites, as both were,
men of superior ability, ripe expert
ence and personally popular, but Orr
was elected by less than thousand
majority, and served antil the Con-
gressional reconstruction policy, en-
franchised the negroes, who largely
dominated in the State, and started
the carpet-bag rule by electing a
mixture of whites and blacks to fll
the important State offices.
When the new reconstruction
policy was inaugurated his position
as conservative Southerner, opposed
to anti-submissive policy of most of
the old South Carolina leaders, COM
manded sufficient respect for him in
the first negro Legislature to elect
him Circuit Judge of his district.
There was no negro or Southerner
in sympathy with the carpet bag
authority who could be given the
judicial Office, and it was voluntarily
rendered to Orr, who accepted it and
rendered great service to his peo-
pie. The people of property gene
rally throughout the State were
bankrupt, and the debts contracted
on the basis of Confederate money,
that was no longer available for the
payment of obligations, made the
case of every debtor hopeless. Most
OF them took the benefit of the
National Bankrupt law simply be-
cause it was a supreme neces ity, but
IN Judge Orr's district he est, pllshed
the unwritten law that every c,'editor
was entitled to recover from the
debtor only what was equitably due
him, and no tribunal in the State
ever reversed him.
oRR'S GENIALITY.
Lshad met Orr frequently during
his ten years of service in Congress,
and learned to know him quite we'll
when he served as Speaker of the
House. The Speakers room was
then one of the most delightful places
to visit in Washington, and never
missed an opportunity to drop in
and have chat where all received
the most generous welcome, but l
had more intimate relations with
him in South Carolina four or five
years after the war, when l spent a
winter at the South Carolina capital
representing important Philadelphia
railroad interests, looking to an air
line from Washington to the gulf.
Judge Orr was always a frequent
visitor at Columbia, and became init
mately associated with me in import
ant business operations. He was
perhaps the only man then in the
State who enjoyed the confidence
and respect of the old-time South
erners, and commanded the respect
of the carpet-bag rulers, although not
in sympathy with them in any of
their radical or profligate measures.
He was delightful, genial COM
panion, and most entertaining con-
vorsionalist. His knowledge of men
and of business affairs generally was
better than that of any other citizen
l met in the State. He was straight
forward, honest and practical in all
things, and found him invaluable
in council and most efficient in exc
cution.
THE CAPITOL AT COLUMBIA
On this occasion | saw the first
negro Legislature. Robert X. Scott,
of Ohio, was then in his first term as
carpet-bag Governor, and was re-
elected in the fall of the same year.
The other important State offices
were divided between the whites and
blacks, and in both branches of the
Legislature the negroes largely pre-
dominated. Prior to the war the
old South Carolina pride was CEN
tered in the construction of its new
capitol, that had been under way for
some years, and was built up to the
square ready for the roof when the
war arrested its progress. 1t was
the dream of the South Carolina
leaders that it would one day be the
capitol of the Southern Confederacy,
and it was constructed with lavish
expenditure. Its imposing columns,
some of which were already in posi-
tion, and scores of others scattered
over the capitol grounds in an unfin-