teacher. Asa Barbour, a colored man, did the same and made it a part of his speech. I then had twenty-one pupils in my school, and the next morning I hadn't but eleven left, and they came and told me the reason they had taken them from me. They just broke up my school. TESTIMONY OF A NEGRO REPUBLICAN: We don't like to have any communion with them [negro democrats] at all. As soon as we find one out we don't have him around us. We don't have much to say to them. We pass them and have nothing to do with them because they have left their right place. If he is with the white democrats here, of course he is against us. A colored man in my estimation cannot be a sincere democrat. This last election the democrats bought in so many that they broke the republicans down, They bought a great many with a drink of whiskey. TESTIMONY OF CÆSAR SHORTER, democrat, formerly a slave of Gov. Shorter, of Alabama: They talked about hanging me; they said they would rather hang me than anything else, and I thought once or twice they would get at it. They didn't let me speak. I didn't find but one colored republican that day. We toted a double-barrelled shot gun and had to hide. He had to be fastened up in the depot house all the morning because a man who toted a a double-barrelled shot gun threatened to kill him. He said (to me) "My friend, you are in a damn bad place." I told him I was in a free country, and I thought my behavior ought to carry me along. He said, "Damn you, you had better keep your eyes open," And when night come I took to my hole, and when the cars come, I got on the cars and they brought me home."House Report No. 262, 43 Cong., 2 Session, pp. 295, 309, 336. West Virginia University Announcements of the facilities and courses in the following departments may be had by writing to the President: D. B. PURINTON, Ph. D., LL. D., President, MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA. West Virginia University Documents Nos. 4 & 5 I. Public Frauds in South Carolina II. The Constitution of The Council of Safety III. Local Ku Klux Constitution IV. The '76 Association PRICE, 30 CENTS ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, ONE DOLLAR Morgantown, West Virginia DOCUMENTS RELATING TO RECONSTRUCTION In this series of reprints will be reproduced documents illustrating the peculiar conditions, social, political and economic, that prevailed in the Southern States during Reconstruction. Newspaper files, public documents, and pamphlets and manuscripts from private collections will furnish the matterial that is to be reproduced. Many of the documents are at present inaccessible to students who are not in reach of large libraries, and some of them have never been published. The following number have been issued: 1. The Constitution and the Ritual of the Knights of the White Camelia. 2. The Revised and Amended Prescript of Ku Klux Klan. Union League Documents. 3. 4-5. Public Frauds in South Carolina, etc. A special discount will be made on orders for class use. Single numbers, 15 cents; double numbers, 30 cents; annual subscription, 8 numbers, one dollar. Address Walter L. Fleming, West Virginia University, Morgantown, W. Va. Copyright 1904, WALTER L. FLEMING. it Public Frauds in South Carolina In South Carolina during the years 1868-1876, carpetbag and negro rule was at its worst. No other Southern States, except Louisiana,-and on a smaller scale, Mississippi, Florida and Arkansas-suffered as did South Carolina. The blacks formed the majority of the population; in 1867, the registration of voters showed 46,346 whites and 78,982 blacks. The prominent whites were disfranchised. The convention of 1868, usually known as the "Black and Tan" contained 63 illiterate blacks and 34 whites. There were no Democrats and no men of character or experience, most of the whites being adventurers from the North. The first reconstructed legislature contained 21 Democrats and 136 Republicans; in the lower House were 48 whites and 76 negroes and in the Senate, 24 whites and 9 negroes. The next legislatures contained a larger proportion of blacks, that of 1870 having in the lower House 80 negroes and 44 whites and in the Senate 11 negroes and 20 whites. From 1868 to 1872 the Governor was Gen. R. K. Scott, a Federal army officer from Ohio, who had come into the State with the Freedmen's Bureau. In 1872, F. J. Moses, Jr., a native scalawag was elected From 1868 to 1872 Moses had been Speaker of the House and had assisted to engineer most of the frauds. In 1874, D. H. Chamberlain, of Massachusetts, a "reform" Republican formerly an officer of a negro regiment, and later attorney general, became governor. The State was bankrupt when Chamberlain came in and he could spend but little money. He gave a fairly decent administration, and in 1876 was displaced by general uprising of the whites who put in General Wade Hampton, a well known Confederate cavalry officer. During the carpetbag regime the State was plundered principally by the operation of cliques of State officers and members of the legislature. These cliques were known as the "Bond Ring," headed by Governor Scott, the "Legislative Ring," controlled by Speaker, later Governor, Moses, and the "Printing Ring" in which Moses and Chamberlain were leading spirits. The State bonded debt increased from about $1,000,000 in 1867 to more than $18,000,000, in 1872. Besides, the burden of taxation was heavy, increasing from $400,000 in 1860 levied on $490,000,000 to $2,000,000 in 1871 levied on $184,000,000. Much land was forfeited for taxes,-343,971 acres in one year. After the overthrow of carpetbag rule an investigation of the frauds committed was made by the State government. Only the most flagrant cases were investigated. There was little or no testimony taken except that of Republicans, all of whom seemed perfectly willing to confess what they had done. Numerous reports were made, but the principal ones related to the following subjects: (1) Sup [Under the disguise of Bupplies, the commonest frauds were perDATANTAG kacu Brate official and member of the Legislature had Double the amount necessary to Day DARK private bills was usually appropriated by the legislature. 4us conspiratore known as the "Legislative Ring" divided the ex"South Carolina has no right to be a state unless it can take care of its statesmen." Supplies were usually classified as follows: Bundries, stationery, refreshments, furniture, carpeting, jewelry, and rents. Bee Fraud Report, 1-268.] his private bille paid by the State. [Woodruff had been Clerk of the Senate.] ROOMS OF SPECIAL INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE COLUMBIA, S. C.., July 16th, 1877. Josephus Woodruff, having been duly sworn, further deposes and says: Under the head of supplies was embraced anything that a Benator chose to order. Orders were generally given through the Clerk, and the accounts rendered against the Clerk of the Benate. At first these orders were moderate and included only such necessary articles as stationery and postage stamps, but *For conditions in South Carolina during Reconstruction see Pike, Prostrate Mtate; Haneroft, Negro in Politics; Allen, Chamberlain's Administration; Chamberlain, Reconstruction in South Carolina, in the Atlantic Monthly, 1901; Ku Klux Report, vols. III., IV., V.; Herbert, Holld Mouth, 85-111; Andrews, United States in Our Time, chapters V, VI, VUE; Homers, Southern States, 37-61; South Carolina Women In the Confededacy, 876-885, == |