Daily Kennebec Journal

Daily Kennebec Journal
Saturday Morning, Nov. 16, 1878.

From the Boston Journal.

New South Carolina was Carried.

People who are in doubt about the success of the republican theory of government must have their doubts strengthened by the disclosure of the means which were adopted in South Carolina to carry the State for the democratic candidates. There has been no more flagrant and reckless assault upon the purity of the ballot box since the political murders in Louisiana a couple of years ago; but we have yet to find a democratic journal sufficiently free from partisan bias to speak a word in condemnation of the South Carolina frauds, or even to refer to them in any other way than as a matter for jest and pleasantry. One would suppose that crimes perpetrated against the right of suffrage, especially if done unblushingly, and on a colossal scale, would be considered sufficiently important to receive the consideration and condemnation of citizens of all parties. But in the case of South Carolina we have what purported to be an election by the people turned into a mockery and a fraud, and any attempt to show the enormity of the offence is met with ridicule. That all this is done in the interest of a party calling itself democratic, and professing more than any other, to be the champion of the rights and privileges of the people, makes it only the more monstrous.

The election in the Charleston District may be taken as an illustration of the sort of work that was done. The district was carried by the republicans in 1876, in spite of violence and intimidation directed against the negro vote, by a majority of 5814. This year the democratic election officers give their candidate a majority of 7000. Several ways were taken for the accomplishment of this result. In St. Andrew's Parish, a strong republican section, the polling places were abolished. The parish is separated from Charleston by the Ashley river, and when the people crossed over into the city to vote, the democratic managers refused to accept their ballots. All the voting places on the road between Charleston and Summerville were abolished, and the people who tried to vote in Charleston were turned back. Whole sections were thus entirely disfranchised.

But this was not the worst of it. The ballots were stuffed with spurious ballots, having on them the names of the democratic candidates. These ballots were about one-fifth the size of the regular ballot and were printed on tissue paper, so that a great many could be compressed into a small space. They were not circulated at all during the election, but they turned up in all the boxes, and were evidently provided and used by the democratic managers. They were used so lavishly that in 20 out of the 32 precincts in the county the number of ballots returned as voters is largely in excess of the entire number of names on the voting lists. In some cases where the excess was so great as to make the thing preposterous, the managers put all the ballots back and drew out the number in excess for rejection—taking pains of course to leave the small ballots undisturbed. At one poll in Charleston the managers returned a vote of 3569, of which 3108 were for the democratic candidates. Each voter was separately sworn, and some time was consumed in putting questions. Assuming that it took one minute for each voter, only 720 votes could have been honestly polled, providing the stream of voters had been continuous during the twelve hours that the polls were open. To have polled the number reported would have required the casting of one vote every twelve seconds during the entire twelve hours—a physical impossibility. Of the 3108 votes reported for the democratic candidates, 2500 were of the small, tissue paper variety.

Other precincts might be mentioned in which similar tactics of disfranchisement or ballot-stuffing were employed to effect similar results. The charges have been published definitely and in detail and have gone without denial. None of the officials of the State, from Gov. Hampton down, have done anything to rebuke the crimes or punish the perpetrators. The democratic journals agree in considering the transaction an excellent joke. But we submit that the matter is more serious than the question of two or three Congressmen for one party or the other; and in the long run, that party which makes its way to power by such iniquities as these in South Carolina will pay the penalty which such a subversion of the rights of suffrage deserves.