738 



SOUTH CAROLINA. 



bills for State printing. Formerly, this item of ex- 

 pense, for a session ol the Legislature, was not one- 

 nftieth, certainly not one-fortieth, of what it has been 

 during the year past. 



Our plain duty points to this : our obvious inter- 

 ests demand this ; the interests of party demand it ; 

 the interests of the State demand it ; a decent regard 

 for the opinions of mankind demands it: we must 

 put forward for official position those, and those 

 only, who are known as upright, true, and unstained 

 men, whose Kepublicanism is as undoubted as their 

 integrity and their capacity to perform the functions 

 of the offices for which they are nominated. Within 

 the lines of the Kepublican party our work lies. 

 There are honest hearts and wise heads enough in 

 that party to do our work. Every good citizen, 

 whatever his party affiliations may have been, owes 

 it to himself to work to purify and regenerate our 

 State government ; but the work especially belongs 

 to us. We cannot abandon it to our political adver- 

 saries, until we have demonstrated our inability to 

 do it ourselves. 



The Executive Committee of the Democratic 

 party decided not to call any convention for 

 the nomination of State officers, their decision 

 being expressed in the following resolutions, 

 adopted on the 27th of August : 



Resolved, That, in the present state of parties in 

 South Carolina, we deem it unwise to nominate a 

 Democratic State ticket, and decline, therefore, to 

 call a convention of the people for that purpose. 



Resolved, That, having adopted the policy thus in- 

 dicated, we demand of the Kepublican party that they 

 fulfil in good faith their public pledges^ and give to 

 the State an able, honest, and economical Govern- 

 ment, under which extravagance and fraud shall 

 cease, and all classes of citizens shall be faithfully and 

 intelligently represented. 



Resolved, That we now place on record our un- 

 qualified condemnation of the corruption and rob- 

 bery which, as the Kepublicans themselves confess, 

 pervade the executive and legislative departments 

 of the State government ; for which corruption and 

 robbery the Kepublican party of this State, as sus- 

 tained by the Federal Government, is alone respon- 

 sible. 



Resolved, That we deem it of the first importance 

 that the Democratic party be organized in the sev- 

 eral counties, for the purpose of obtaining, by such 

 means as may seem best, the largest measure of local 

 and legislative reform. 



Resolved, That the chairman of this committee 

 appoint, at his leisure, a chairman for each county in 

 the State, who shall carry out in their respective 

 counties the objects of the preceding resolutions. 



Resolved, That the members of this committee from 

 the diiferent congressional districts have authority 

 to make arrangements for the nomination of mem- 

 bers of Congress for their respective districts. 



There was, however, a meeting of the so- 

 called "straight-out" Democrats, at Columbia, 

 at about the same time with the Republican 

 Conventions in August, and delegates to the 

 National Convention to be held at Louisville 

 were appointed. The following is the plat- 

 form adopted : 



Resolved, That South Carolina is one of the thir- 

 teen original States of the American Union, is a peer 

 and an equal of each of the thirty-seven States now 

 composing the Kepublicof the United States, and, as 

 such, should and ought to finjoy all the rights re- 

 served and guaranteed by and under the Constitu- 

 tion of a common country. 



Resolved, That the union established by the Con- 

 stitution is a union of States thereby united, and is 

 incapable of existenco without the States as its con- 



stituent integral parts ; that the. indestructibility of 

 the States, ot their rights, and of their equality with 

 each other, is an indispensable part of this political 

 system, and, therefore, the perpetuation of the Union 

 in its integrity depends upon the preservation of the 

 States in their political integrity ; the Government 

 of the United States being a federal republic, and not 

 a consolidation of the whole p*eople into one homo- 

 geneous nation. 



Resolved, That the right of local State government, 

 with the subjection of the military to the civil au- 

 thority, and the security of the writ of habeas corpus, 

 in time of peace, with the power to enforce the rights 

 and promote the well-being of its inhabitants by such 

 means as the judgment of its own people may pre- 

 scribe, are reserved, secured, and guaranteed, under 

 the Constitution of the United States, to the several 

 States of the Union, and that, too, not subject to any 

 constitutional obligation, on the part of the Federal 

 Government, of any kind whatever ; but, on the con- 

 trary, the Federal Government is under a solemn 

 constitutional obligation not to interfere in these 

 matters in any way ; and, when it does so, it becomes 

 a usurper of po'vyer, an oppressive tyrant, and an ene- 

 my to the liberties of the Government. 



Resolved, That the perpetuation of the Union, and 

 the maintenance of the Government, as both were 

 established by the Constitution, and as both under 

 the Constitution have been expounded in the fore- 

 going resolutions, in conformity with the teachings 

 of Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson, have ever been 

 held as cardinal doctrines of the Democratic party ; 

 and they are now reiterated, with increased earnest- 

 ness, under the solemn conviction that the only sure 

 hope for the preservation of liberty rests in bringing 

 back the administration of the Government to these 

 principles, and in rescuing it from the hands of those 

 whose admitted usurpations and revolutionary meas- 

 ures^now threaten the entire overthrow of the whole 

 fabric of our system of free institutions, and the erec- 

 tion in their stead of a consolidated empire. 



Resolved, That, in the approaching election, the 

 Democratic party of South Carolina invites every- 

 body to cooperate with them in a zealous determina- 

 tion to change the present usurping and corrupt Ad- 

 ministration, by placing in power men who are true 

 to the principles of constitutional government, and 

 to a faithful and economical administration of public 

 affairs. 



The State election occurred on the 16th of 

 October, and resulted in the victory of the 

 " Regular " Republicans. The total vote cast 

 for Governor was 106,371, of which Moses re- 

 ceived 69,738, and Tomlinson 36,533, making 

 the majority of the former 33,305. "Regu- 

 lar " Republican Congressmen were chosen 

 in all four of the districts, and the new Legis- 

 lature consists of 25 Republicans and 8 

 Democrats in the Senate, and 100 Repub- 

 licans and 24 Democrats in the Lower House. 

 The total vote at the presidential election in 

 November numbered 95,380, including 187 

 in favor of Charles O'Conor, for President. 

 General Grant received 72,290, and Horace 

 Greeley 22,903, the majority of the former 

 being 49,300. 



The total value of real estate in South Caro- 

 lina, as returned by the county assessors, for 

 the thirty-one counties, is $92,806,417, of 

 which $63,301,843, is outside of incorporated 

 cities, towns, and villages, and $29,504,574 in 

 them. The total value of taxable personal 

 property is $46,190,322. The rate of taxation 

 for 1872-'73 is 15 mills on the dollar. The 



