As goes South Carolina so go the other rebel States, as in the _first_
rebellion. Georgia next falls into line after this fashion:
The "Augusta (Georgia) Constitutionalist" insists that the Democrats of
South Carolina shall defy the lawful direction of the Attorney-General
of the United States in regard to conspiracies against the political
rights of the citizens, and shall continue to disturb, and, if need be,
break up Republican meetings. The advice is equally plain and
peremptory. Republicans are not to be allowed to hold meetings without
the presence and participation of Democrats. What that participation is,
is well understood. It is the attendance of armed men who will not allow
a word said which does not meet with their approbation; it is the
warning of citizens not to join in the meetings; it is the threatening
of life if they do; it is the savage assaulting of those who are
conspicuous in proclaiming their intention to vote the Republican
ticket; it is armed and violent defiance of the law, and, in the last
resort, assassination. The issue is clearly defined. It is, pure and
simple, whether the government of the United States can and will protect
its citizens in their constitutional rights, when those are rights which
it is authorized and required to conserve and defend. Evidently the
rebellion was not ended at Appomattox.--_Providence Journal_.
We have contemplated deferring the publication of this pamphlet until we
could ascertain from the Secretary of the Interior the number of acres
of unpre-empted land in each State, together with their location &c.,
&c., but we are informed by the commissioner of the land office in
Washington that there are no data or statistics in his office that will
give us that information.
As we may have to wait for Congress to assemble before we can obtain the
necessary statistics, we shall send out our pamphlet at once, and set
the ball in motion.
The question that has recently come up between the Secretary of the
Interior and the Pacific railroads must be settled, so far as we can
see, in favor of the Secretary, who has just issued a pamphlet with the
grounds of his decision, and which has been sent us.
The railroads, however, may delay matters by their dilatoriness in
making their returns to government of the lands sold by them, their
location, &c., and it may be necessary for Congress to hurry up that
matter a little, so that the land commissioner can give the desired
information.
But there is no time to be lost. The "conciliated" Wade Hampton, and the
Hamburg-massacre-Butler crowd have already organized the second
rebellion in South Carolina, and armed their militia with "federal
bayonets," over which waves the "bloody shirt," inscribed with Hampton's
declaration in a speech in Sumter County, "that the Democrats must carry
that county at all hazards," supplemented by Senator!! Butler, who "said
it was unnecessary to tell them _how_ to do it." "Webb," a correspondent
of the Boston "Journal," tells us in the following paragraph, how they
are doing it:--