Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-12-27
OVERTHROW OF RADIcALIsM.
"reminiscences OF '76-Iubllee Attending the
Election OF Hampton.

OaTOllua WAS Ireeu Hndlly anu IOT-
ever from the terror and odium of
radical rule. In the Richmond
News Leader of the 5th instant,
Editor A. B. Williams gives the fol-
lowing account of the manner in
which the event was hailed through
out the Palmetto State:
This is the twenty-ninth ami
versary of the overthrow of the last
of the Republican reconstruction
governments in the South. 1t is
hard to realize that we have many
thousands of voters who were not
born then and that the majority of
the voters in the country could not
vote on that day of portent, of dread
and anxiety and hope. 1t all seems
80 fresh, vivid and near to those
who participated in the events of
that time. Those who were not in
one of the three Southern States
South Carolina, Florida and Louisi-
ana-which were the fiercest and
most fearful backgrounds, cannot
understand and never will under.
stand what that seventh of Novem-
Der meant. Its approach was almost
like the coming of the day of judg-
ment. The white people felt that it
marked the elimination and would
tell the result of their final and
supreme effort. They staked every
thing on the issue. They violated
law with the knowledge that if they
were beaten banishment, persecution
and oppression intensified would
come to them. They gave what
money they had and their time and
labor with reckless prodigality. For
weeks and months the three States
were armed camps. The Republican
party in the country was fighting for
its life, while the Democratic party
was made desperate by the first
prospect and hope of victory in
twenty years. In the Southern
States it was death grapple for
supremacy between the two races.
In South Carolina there was no
sleep anywhere the night before.
The laws had been framed by the
Republican government to make
fraud easy. The day was to begin
everywhere with struggle for pos
session of the polls. Through the
country Hampton's Red Shirts rode
all night. Men in companies of fif-
ties or hundreds were transferred
from one county or township to
another 80 that they might be
strangers in the neighborhood in
which they were to operate. There
was firing with pistols and anvil
cannon, blowing of horns and yelling
from sunset to daybreak and in towns
fires were kindled near each polling
place and heavily armed men kept
vigil so that they might make way
for the early voters of their own side
who might then be off in the saddle
to vote elsewhere. Laws and re-
strlctions were thrown to the winds.
Even where United States troops
were on guard the old adage that
"blood is thicker than water" was
proved triumphantly and enlisted
men slipped away from barracks and
camps, assumed citizens clothes and
voted as industriously and frequently
as the most Jealous white native.
Nobody knows who carried South
Carolina, or would have carried it
with fair vote, and nobody ever
will know, and we suppose it was
the same way in the other con-
tested Southern States. Undoubt-
edly thousands of negroes voted for
Hampton for Governor, some be-
cause they honestly realized that the
old conditions were destructive,
some from fear, some from affection,
some for money. Many of these
voters, wearing the red shirt and
were escorted to the polls
by protecting troops of white men,