Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1871 — The Policy of Assassination. [ARTICLE]

The Policy of Assassination.

! Governor Scott is trying to restore | order in South Carolina by peaceable j means. It is so obviously impolitic, as [ well as iniquitous, for the Democracy to keep up the present reign of [terror that it naturally seemed to Ilis Excellency that a friendly consultation with the more influential men of the party would be tliebeginning of better things. The conference called in accordance with this view of the situation has met. All the Democrats present, with one exception, used soft words, at the same time significantly refraining from promising to take measures for the arrest of the outrages now being committed. One man, General Kershaw, was more pronounced, lie is reported as having announced that, “in his opinion and tliat of many of his friends, the only way to restore peace and prevent what the Governor terms outrages, but which he (Kershaw) regarded as but the just indignation of a plundered people, was for the scoundrelly carpet-bag-gers from the North and rascally scalawags of the South to resign this offices they had usurped, and leave those States in the hands of Southern gentlemen.” Here-we have the key to the whole KuKlux movement. While the Times and other Northern organs of the Ivlan, still pretend that the Republican party is responsible for all Southern outrages, one of the more prominent sympathizers on the spot flatly confesses the real aim of the conspirators. The Republican officials of the State, whether natives of South Carolina or “ Yanks,” must abdicate in favor of “Southern gentlemen,” or the outrages' will be persisted in. There is every reason to believe, that General Kershawstated honestly the issue which Ivu-Klux-istn presents. Finding themselves in a minority, these “gentlemen ”have resolved to Win by midnight assassination what is beyond their reach through the ballot box. The Southern situation w-as never more critical. The welfare of the South, immediate and ulterior, depends upoh the result of the present conflict between order and anarchy. The “ Southern gentlemen ” would sacrifice every general interest to political power. If the South was worth retaining, it is certainly worth governing. The preservation of the Union meant the re-establishment of constitutional liberty. , The policy of assassination, which h3s been adopted by the “Southern gentlemen,” can lay no claim to originality. It has always been the especial bane of republics, froch is to-day. South America, Mexico, San Domingo, France, and the rest, all speak the same language. Their political history unite in warning us against this peril. Upon the rock of anarchy and outlawry the real liberties of those nations have been wrecked, or are being w recked. Each form of government has its characteristic peril. To appeal from the freeman’s ballot to the assassin’s i3 the prevailing instinct of barbarism under republican institutions.—Chicago journal, March 92.