[Gutenberg 35771] • When the Ku Klux Rode

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1912. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER NINE CARPETBAG GOVERNMENT The negroes had exercised without hindrance their new privilege of the suffrage. Their incapacity as voters was illustrated in the character of the men who assumed office after the election in 1868. In Sumter county, Tobias Lane was elected probate judge, but during the period of uncertainty when the constitution was in abeyance, concluding that congressional action respecting it would be unfavorable, he packed his carpetbag and returned to Ohio, having been one of the migrants from that state, so prolific of birds of his feather. Beville, the sheriff, was an appointee of General Swayne. He was unable to give bond, but Swayne waived that formality and ordered him to continue in office without bond. In 1868 Richard Harris, a negro, who could neither read nor write, became his worthy successor. As solicitor the discriminating voters chose Ben Bardwell, a negro, who was wholly deficient in the knowledge of reading and writing, a deficiency which made him "an easy mark" for one of the most learned bars in the state. George Houston, a freedman, was sent to the lower house of the legislature. As his colleague Ben Inge, another "person of color," absolutely illiterate, was selected. An army captain, one Yordy, received the state senatorial honors, which he wore while serving Uncle Sam in the custom house at Mobile. He was a long-distance representative, having no domicile in Sumter, nor ever making his appearance there. John B. Cecil, reputed federal army sutler and coming with the influx from fecund Ohio, was elected treasurer. He gradually and logically degenerated into a partnership with a negro in a grogshop enterprise. Badger, another bird of passage, became tax assessor. The revenue and road commission was a motley aggregation which comprised one car...