Year: 1874

Hsw Republicans Make Larceny


Respectable.


We do not say that larceny can be
made respectable in the eyes Of honest
men; but IL Is quite true that certain
officials in South Carolina have come to
look upos thieving as the chief end of
the carpct-baggar. Just how much steal
ing has been done in South Carolina,
seems not tob he known even to the thieves
themselves. II is uncertain whether the
debt of that State Is sl5,OO0,000, Or
sl9, 100000, or s29, 100000, and Cover
nor Moses in his late speech at Sumter
said that he neither knew nor cared.


Hs very frankly states, however, that
IL docs not matter how much the debt Is,
or what the annual expenditures are, the
negroes in the Legislature and other
offices are perfectly justified in what they
do, since they are only getting back from
the whites what they 1.-THE negroes)
earned by the sweat Of their brows in
times past. Governor Moses declaration
on this point are very important as they
show beyond cavil the aim Of the negroes
and their leaders, which is nothing more
nor less than the confiscation Of the
property and estates Of the whites. We
hope that our Republican friends will
carefully reflect upon what Governor
Moses has to say on the subject. Here is
one point that he makes:


Many Of our officials, more especially in
the membership Of the General Assembly,
have been Of necessity chosen among those
people who owned no property at the times
Of reconstruction, but this fact should never
be alluded to in reproachful terms by a
South Carolinian who formerly owned slaves.
These officials who owned no property were
mostly from the ranks Of that class whose
unremitting and unrequited toll had pro-
dueed the wealth Of this State. They
have titled the broad acres, but not for them
selves. They had gathered the harvests, but
into other mems barns. They were the
builders Of cities, towns, and railroads, but
were the owners Of no houses nor lands. In
fact they did not so much as own themselves,
and had no profit Of all their labor under





accumulated for two hundred aud fifty years
was in the hands of others. When, there
fore, q wise and merciful dispensatian of hu-
man events gave them the rights and preroga-
tives of free American citizens, bringing
with them a voice and vote in the conduct
Of public affairs did they not have moral
right to the legal use Of such share in that
wealth as was due from the property-holder
to the State, to pay the expenses of a govern
ment inaugurated and administered for the
security and happiness Of the whole people?


This is what might be termed pure
and unadulterated communism. Gov
ernor Moses justifes the wholesale lar
cenies that have been carried on in South
Carolina since 1868 upon the grounds
that the negroes have the right to get
even with whites by robbing and plunder-
ing them under the almost imperceptible
color of law. If he does not mean this,
what does he mean? lie claims that the
negroes had no property, yet they earned
it all; consequently they had the legal
and moral right to take it. This is to
say, they elected themselves to the Leg
islatnre and then voted themselves such
"share" of the white mans property
as they saw ct. 1t was emincntly their
moral right to appropriate 100000 for
the uses of the Land Commission-to buy
lands for the landless-and to spend s3.-
600, 900 of State bonds, as they did, in
raising this 100000. If the Legislature
had appropriated s7,O0O,ooO to the use of
the Land Commission, and spent $685.
100000 of State obligations in raising
the money, they would still be only
getting back part Of that which was
rightfully and naturally altogether their
own.


According to this beautiful theory
evolved by Governor Moses all the prop
erty in the State of South Carolina be-
longs to the negroes, inasmuch as they
are in the majority and are in position
to control the distribution of the same.
Having the absolute control of affairs,
and the moral right to do as they see fit,
they have the right to appropriate to
their own use and behoof, so much Of the
property Of the State as their wants or
their cupidity may dictate, and if they
leave any share of it at all to the original
white owners, it is simply done as a
matter of charity and forbearance and
not as matter of equity! A comfort
ing doctrine this truly, and one that will
suggest to the Communists of the Old
World that they can learn much by sit
ting at the feet of Governor Moses and
the negro Legislature of South Carolina.


History does not give parallel case Of
cop6scation with this, in which the most
outrageous and unjusti6able robberies
are carried ON in the name of law and
morality. In his speeches Governor
Moses simply echoes the spirit Of his
black constituency, whom he and his
brother carpet-baggers have wrought up
to this pitch of Communism, and by
means of which he expects to get him
self reelected Governor. We are curious
/ 10 know how much more the whites of