700 



SOUTH CAROLINA. 



General Canby's election order was issued on 

 the 16th of October, and appointed November 

 19th and 20th for the taking of the vote in this 

 State. The election regulations were much the 

 same as in the other districts. (See ALABAMA.) 

 Provision was made for the revision of the 

 lists, the supervision of the balloting, and the 

 preservation of order. Violence and threats 

 for the purpose of preventing any person from 

 voting were prohibited under pain of arrest 

 and trial by military authority. Sale of liquor 

 was forbid'den, and no soldier allowed at the 

 voting precincts unless in the capacity of a 

 registered voter. 



The number of delegates to be chosen was 

 124, which were apportioned by the military 

 order among the various districts of the State. 



Before the days set for the election, both 

 parties, viz., the Union Eepublican party, as 

 previously organized at meetings already al- 

 luded to, and the Conservatives of South Caro- 

 lina, represented by General Hampton, ex- 

 Governor Perry, and Judge Aldrich, held State 

 Conventions, the former at Charleston on the 

 16th of October, the latter at Columbia on the 

 6th of November. The Conservatives put forth 

 an address to the people, in which they con- 

 demned in unmeasured terms the whole policy 

 of the General Government in its treatment of 

 the Southern States. The closing paragraphs 

 of this document were in these words : 



We have said, and we repeat, that we desire peace ; 

 but the policy now proposed cannot give us peace. 

 It is contrary to the voice of reason and the law of 

 nature. Instead of peace, under the Keconstruction 

 Acts, we shall have strife and bitterness. Instead 

 of the South recovering from her poverty, and con- 

 tributing her share to the common wealtn and pros- 

 perity of the country, she will become more and more 

 impoverished. The blight of misrule will cut short 

 her harvests and dry up her resources. The law of 

 violence, which has prevailed for more than two 

 years in reconstructed Tennessee, will extend its 

 sway throughout the entire South, and we shall reap, 

 like her, the harvest of crime and blood multiplied 

 twofold. 



"We have shown that free negro labor, under the 

 sudden emancipation policy of' the Government, is a 

 disaster from which, under the most favorable cir- 

 cumstances, it will require years to recover. Add to 

 this the policy which the Keconstruction Acts pro- 

 pose to enforce, and you place the South, politically 

 and socially, under the heel of the negro ; these in- 

 fluences combined would drag to hopeless ruin the 

 most prosperous community in the world. What do 

 these Eeconstruction Acts propose? Not negro 

 equality, merely, but negro supremacy. In the 

 name ; then, of humanity to both races in the name 

 of citizenship under the Constitution in the name 

 of a common history in the past in the name of our 

 Anglo-Saxon race and blood in the name of the 

 civilization of the nineteenth century in the name 

 of magnanimity and the noble instincts of manhood 

 in the name of God and Nature, we protest against 

 these Acts, as destructive to the peace of society, the 

 prosperity of the country, and the greatness and 

 grandeur of our common future. 



The people of the South are powerless to avert the 

 impending ruin. We have been overborne ; and the 

 responsibility to posterity and to the world has passed 

 into other hands. 



At the election in November the whole num- 

 ber of votes cast on the question of holding a 



convention was 71,087. One hundred and 

 thirty whites and 68,876 blacks voted for the 

 convention ; 2,081 whites against it. Of the 

 delegates chosen, 34 were whites and 63 col- 

 ored. 



The members of the convention were or- 

 dered by General Canby to assemble in the 

 city of Charleston at noon on Tuesday, Janu- 

 ary 14, 1868, "for the purpose of framing a 

 constitution and civil government." 



In consequence of the partial failure of the 

 cotton crop, and the almost complete destruc- 

 tion of the grain crops, by the drought of 1866, 

 the people of South Carolina entered upon the 

 new year with very insufficient supplies of food. 

 The most painful results showed themselves 

 early in March, when accounts began to come 

 from all parts of the State, of the utmost des- 

 titution among the people. Not only freedmen 

 but whites, who had been in circumstances of 

 comfort, and even affluence, before the 'recent 

 war, were sufferers from the prevailing scar- 

 city ; and some cases of actual starvation were 

 reported by agents who made it their business 

 to know the wants of the people. A joint 

 resolution of Congress authorized the officers 

 of the Freedmen's Bureau to distribute supplies 

 of food among the needy of both races. Be- 

 tween the 1st of May and the 1st of October, 

 47,549 bushels of corn, 100,000 Ibs. of pork, 

 and 130,757 Ibs. of bacon were distributed by 

 officers of the Bureau, under the authority of 

 this resolution. Large amounts of corn and 

 meat were also received from the Southern 

 Famine Relief Commissions of New York, 

 Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities. Food 

 and clothing were also contributed in large 

 amounts by parties in Maryland, Tennessee, 

 Missouri, and Kentucky. Money in consider- 

 able sums w r as received for the benefit of the 

 sick and feeble, for whom corn and pork would 

 be an inadequate relief. By these means the 

 suffering was, in a great measure, mitigated, 

 until the coming in of the grain harvests, 

 which were abundant in the northwestern dis- 

 tricts of the State. The rice crop was also fair, 

 but the cotton crop was less than an average, 

 especially on the Sea Islands. 



The freedmen are said to have worked well 

 in most cases. Contracts for labor were made 

 either for wage?, at about $10 per month, 

 or for a share in the crop. The latter plan 

 appears to have been quite successful. General 

 R. K. Scott, Assistant Commissioner of the Bu- 

 reau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned 

 Lands, says: "I am thoroughly convinced, aijd 

 every fair-minded and .observing person must, 

 I think, come to the same conclusion, th;it all 

 that is necessary, on the part of the planters in 

 this State, to make the freed people as good if 

 not a better class of agricultural laborers than 

 can be introduced into this section, is to show 

 by their treatment of them that they intend to 

 pursue a fair and high-minded course in all 

 their dealings, to the end that they may instil 

 them with confidence in their honesty and in- 



