In South Carolina there is neither a free ballot nor an honest count, and since the election in 1874 the history of elections in the State is the history of a continued series of murders, outrages, perjury and fraud...
...Having perfect immunity from punishment, the encouragement, if not the active participation, of the State government, and the protection of the courts of the State, the rifle clubs committed their outrages without restraint, and the election officers their frauds without even the thin veneer of attempted concealment. Elections since then have been carried by perjury and fraud – two things worshipped and adored by the South Carolina Democracy...
...Many apologists for the rule of the minority in South Carolina assert that the negro votes the Democratic ticket, and that to form a majority from the census giving the entire vote to the Republican party is erroneous. There are colored men who vote the Democratic ticket, and I suppose that there are Irishmen in Ireland who act with the Tories of England...
....All persons desiring to vote the Democratic ticket are registered without personal application, and certificates are furnished them either before or on the day of election without even the formality of an oath as to eligibility. Registration the fountain-source of election, curtails Republican suffrage by the expense and inconvenience it entails upon persons not living at the county-seat, by refusal through willful neglect to register Republicans, and by fraud of the supervisor in making false entries; it adds to the Democratic vote through his fraud in unlawfully adding to the names on the registration-books those of all persons who are expected to vote the Democratic ticket....
....At a neighboring poll another scene is enacted. The polls are open, the boxes shown, the voters deposit their ballots, there is general levity, and everything appears to be fair. There are three hundred Republican voters; the Democracy have secured forty or fifty votes, and the polls close. The votes are counted; there are two or three hundred more ballots than names on the poll-list; instead of fifty Democratic ballots there are three hundred and fifty...
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