Year: 1879

on die Floor Of Congress by True Son


Of South Carolina.


We copy from the Congressional Record,
the following extracts from the able aud
exhaustive address of Hon. j. H. Evius,
our Representative in Congress, delivered
in the House Of Representatives, Friday
February 2Sth, 1879, on the Contested
Election case of Richardson vs.. Rainey,
from the First Congressional District Of
South Carolina:


Mr.. Speaker: trust shall be pardoned
a forinaalgiugin IN brief retrospeek be6ers
J. entering upon The Simmediate discdssio6 of
y che fssdes presented in this case It will
enable US, [ am sure, the better to under
stand the condition of things which brought
about the campaign preceding the fall elec-
tion of 1876, out of which this contest has
arisen.


l confess, however, when I remember
that for eighteen years (years into which
are crowded SO many signal events Of our
history that the voice of no true son Of
South Carolina had been heard in this Hall
in her defense, am oppressed with sense
Of my inability to give utterance to the
thoughts which such an occasion should
inspire, and feel stronger than before the
desire to shirk from the undertaking.


Under the operation of the reconstruc.
tien laws of the Freedmen's Bureau and
the bayonet, the white people of South Car
olina were in 1868 subjected to the complete
domination of their former slaves.-In the
history Of the world it was reserved for a
people who had given to the country in the
hour Of its dire extremity such patriots as
Laurens, Pinckney, Rutedge, Marion,
Sumter, and Moultrie, and had contributed
to the noontide of its glory the luster that
shone around the names of Lowndes, Hayne,
Calhoun, and McDufie, to drink to the
dregs this bitter cup of humiliation. All
the people of the Southern States who had
Joined with South Carolina in the war be-
tween the States were put to the rack aud
broken upon the wheel set in motion by
these laws, but those of South Carolina aud
Louisiana alone went down under their
irresistible force into that dark valley and
shadow of death where for years they strug-
gled against adverse legislation, an adverse
administration, and all the red dragons Of
political and social revolution.


X X


FEARFUL CONDlTlON OF The SOUTH.


will do my friends on the other side of
this Hall the justice to say that, blinded by
the passions epgendercd by the war, be-
lieve they did not foresee the direful conse-
quences which would necessarily follow
their legislation iu regard to the States Of
the South, aud that so great has been the
partisan prejudice Of the last decade that
they do not yet fully appreciate them.
ask their attention, therefore, for very
few moments while l sketch in the brefest
manner possible the condition of things in
my own State, brought about by the recon-
struction laws Of Congress and the arbitrary
measures adopted by the Executive in en-
forcing them, in order that the supremacy
Of a political party might be maintained.


BY the fortunes Of war and its results tn e
aggregate wealth of the State was reduced
from six hundred and thirty millions, to
about one hundred and thirty millions but
her people returning from the war with
stout hearts went manfully to work to re-
pair their shattered fortunes and build up
their Masterpieces. 1t was impossible for
them at once to appreciate the full effects
Of the complete revolution wrought by the
emancipation Of their former slaves, or to
understand how best to deal with problem
where they had no precedent to guide them,
and the solution Of which had never before
taxed the human understanding. 1t should
not, therefore, seem strange in the light of
subsequent legislation on the part Of Con-
gress and subsequent events, that they did
not act with the greatest wisdom, or even
with that intelligence and foresight with
which others who had no lifelong preju.
dices and opinions to overcome would have
acted.


PLACED UNDER NEGRO DOMINATION.


Their efforts at solving the difficulties OF
this problem, had, however, q very brief ex.
pertinent, and after a few years Of absolute
military rule, new amendments to the Con.
stitutiop, and new acts Of Congress- gave
the newly enfranchised race complete con.
troll of the State. Grant was maguani
nous in the terms he made when he re.
ceived the spotlcss sword Of Lee, but il
can scarcely be said that the Government
Cf the conqueror was magnanimous, which
placed a brave people, who had in good
faith accepted the terms Of an honorable
surrender of the cause for which they
fought, under the dominica Of their former
slaves. What, ask, in the calm judgment
of this hour, were the results which might
have been reasonably expected to fow from
the creation of such an abnormal condition
of society? Would rapine and violanee
,,,rdor and wholesnle hutobory of mon o,d