The Kind that Made Up the Hampton Meeting in Charleston — Men Who Pay No Taxes, or Pay with Worthless State Bank-Bills — A Contrast to the Meeting of the Supporters of Gov. Chamberlain.
From an Occasional Correspondent.
Charleston, .
The Democrats of this State profess to believe that the surest way of breaking down the Government of the State is by refusing to pay taxes, and for this purpose they are holding meetings in different parts of the State.
The first of these meetings, and the only one which has attracted any attention, was held in this city on , and notwithstanding the efforts of the Democratic press to make it appear that the meeting was a great success, it was a failure, both in regard to character and numbers.
The hall where the meeting assembled, crowded to its utmost extent, cannot hold over 800 people, and it is certain that no one was turned away from that meeting because the hall was overcrowded.
The more conservative Democrats had little or nothing to do with it, and the name of the largest Democratic tax-payer in the city is absent both from the call for the meeting and from the list of officers who were elected on that occasion — of which there was a large number, the officers constituting about one-fourth of the meeting.
The character of this meeting, however, as representing the tax-payers, can be best judged by an examination of the names of the persons attached to the call for the meeting.
This call was signed by 68 persons, of whom five pay absolutely no taxes whatever, while 22 more might just as well pay no taxes, for they pay their taxes to the State in worthless bills of the “Bank of the State,” which the State is compelled by the decision of the courts to receive in payment of taxes.
By the terms of the charter of this bank the faith and credit of the State is pledged to the redemption of its bills, which for years after the war could be bought for 5 or 10 cents on the dollar, but since the decision of the United States Supreme Court compelling the State to receive these bills for taxes, they have increased in value, though to the State they were more worthless even than Confederate money, since they cannot be used in defraying any of the expenses of the Government, but are destroyed as fast as received.
It is in this way that these 22 men, among them the Chairman of the meeting, C.T. Lowndes, pay their taxes, or, in other words, swindle the State out of their taxes.
To the State it makes little difference whether they pay them or not, and for all valuable purposes they are no more tax-payers than the five men who signed the call with them any pay nothing whatever.
Another one of the persons who signed this call is found upon the defaulters’ list, so that out of the 68 who signed the call but 40 can be considered as tax-payers.
An examination of the tax-books discloses how much injury they will inflict upon the State by refusing to pay their taxes.
Here are a few samples:
Isaac W. Hayne
$1.45
J.B. Campbell
2.32
T.M. Hanckel
4.35
C.H. Simonton
14.94
B.H. Rutledge
59.83
C.R. Miles
67.05
The men who called this Charleston meeting, and elected themselves as the officers of it, are no worse, however, as tax-payers, than the few fools who are doing the same thing in other portions of the State.
As a set-off to this Democratic meeting, the law-abiding citizens of this city held a mass-meeting , at which fully 2,000 people were present, notwithstanding the extreme coldness of the weather, which prevented them from holding a large meeting in the open air as at first contemplated.
They met, in the words of the call, “for the purpose of expressing their determination to maintain and support the lawful and legitimate Government of the State, of which his Excellency, Daniel H. Chamberlain, is the Chief Executive.”
The meeting was a perfect success, and the enthusiasm that marked the proceedings indicated an earnest determination to sustain by every legitimate means the lawful Government of the State.…
This seems much like what happened in Louisiana around the same time.
Rutheford Hayes, to cement his questionable presidential election victory (the Bush vs. Gore of his day), promised to withdraw federal support for Reconstruction governments in the South and to allow the white supremacist terrorist forces to take over.
Carpetbagger Republican Daniel Chamberlain left South Carolina a few months after this article ran, and was replaced as governor by Wade Hampton Ⅲ, a former Confederate military officer and slave owner.
A very frequently-used tactic of tax resistance campaigns is to take public oaths or sign public pledges of resistance.
This signals to potential resisters that they will not be alone, and is a show of defiance to the authorities.
I’ve collected dozens of examples, which I’ll summarize here:
When Gandhi launched his first satyagraha-based campaign in South Africa in , a member of the meeting asked everyone present to take a solemn oath of opposition.
Gandhi remarked:
There is no one in this meeting who can be classed as an infant or as wanting in understanding.
You are all well advanced in age and have seen the world; many of you are delegates and have discharged responsibilities in a greater or lesser measure.
No one present, therefore, can ever hope to excuse himself by saying that he did not know what he was about when he took the oath.
I know that pledges and vows are, and should be, taken on rare occasions.
A man who takes a vow every now and then is sure to stumble.
But if I can imagine a crisis in the history of the Indian community of South Africa when it would be in the fitness of things to take pledges, that crisis is surely now.
… Resolutions of this nature cannot be passed by a majority vote.
Only those who take a pledge can be bound by it.
This pledge must not be taken with a view to produce an effect on outsiders.
No one should trouble to consider what impression it might have upon the local Government, the Imperial Government, or the Government of India.
Every one must only search his own heart, and if the inner voice assures him that he has the requisite strength to carry him through, then only should he pledge himself and then only would his pledge bear fruit.
His entire speech, which reflects on vows and the responsibility of vow makers, is worth reading in this context.
In , “98 per cent of the merchants at Stuttgart and… 60 out of 60 merchants at DeWitt,” Arkansas, signed pledges to refuse to collect a new sales tax from their customers or to pay it to the government.
Also in , in Verdun (then a suburb of Montreal), 164 shopkeepers, including the mayor, signed a pledge to refuse to collect or pay a Montreal city sales tax.
, merchants in Gadsen, Alabama followed suit: gathering and voting unanimously to refuse to collect or pay a sales tax.
In Ghana, in , the Akuashongs met and “swore not to… pay any tax, even if the government should fight with them, and to make war with any party breaking the agreement.”
In several French newspapers printed the text of a pledge in which French liberals vowed to resist any taxes that the monarchy instituted without going through constitutional channels.
The newspapers were themselves prosecuted for this.
However, in court, they pointed out that the King himself, before he took the throne, had signed a tax resistance pledge of his own, along with three other members of the nobility, as a protest against republican infringements on their privileges.
In Castine, Maine, in , the pledge took the form of a vote: the town voted 125 to 65 at a specially-convened town meeting, to refuse to collect a school funding tax in defiance of a superior court order to do so.
In , some 5,000 businessmen in Belfast vowed to “keep back payment of all taxes which they can control, so long as any attempt to put into operation the provisions of the Home Rule Bill is persevered in.”
In the Women’s Tax Resistance League, members signed “pledge cards” that indicated which taxes they would be resisting if the government persisted in denying women the vote.
The Reform Act agitation really hit its stride in when a huge rally, 150,000 people strong, vowed as a group to stop paying taxes until the Act’s passage.
One account of the meeting read:
He declared before God, that, if all constitutional modes of obtaining the success of the reform measure failed, he should and would, be the first man to refuse the payment of taxes, except by a levy upon his goods [tremendous cheering, which lasted some minutes].
I now call upon all who hear me, and who are prepared to join me in this step, to hold up your hands [an immense forest of hands was immediately elevated, accompanied by vehement cheering].
I now call upon you who are not prepared to adopt this course, to hold up your hands and signify your dissent [not a single hand appearing, loud shouts and cheers were repeated].
In South Africa’s “New Rush” in , a number of miners signed a pledge reading, in part, “I promise on my honour and in presence of the people that I shall not from this day forward — until released from this obligation by the officers of the League — pay any taxes or impositions whatsoever to the Government, id est, for the support and maintenance of the Government of this territory; and that I shall buy from, sell to, or deal with only such men as have also taken this pledge or obligation; and that I shall to the utmost of my power, with purse and person, protect any and every officer and member of the League against coercion or consequences of what nature soever arising out of the action necessitated by this pledge.
At least 1,000 taxpayers in Elmira, New York, signed a declaration in saying that “The undersigned taxpayers… believing the county, city, and school tax rates as levied are too high, hereby refuse to pay until the budget has been thoroughly examined by the committee of the Taxpayers’ league.
We also refuse to pay penalties until such revision has been made and a lower tax adopted.”
500 taxpayers in Cadillac, Michigan, signed a petition in in which they vowed to refuse to pay taxes for two years unless the local government cut its budget by 20%.
In , 36 New Jersey residents signed their name to a petition to the home country in which they declared that they would refuse to pay any further taxes so long as a Roman Catholic was in charge of tax assessment.
At a “monster meeting” at Castlemaine in Australia in , a group of miners unanimously adopted a resolution to refuse to take out licenses.
Taxpayers in Zeehan, Tasmania, met in an open-air meeting in and passed a resolution stating that they “hereby express our solemn determination to passively resist the payment of the unjust income tax imposed by the late Government.”
A Queensland, Australia stealth tax on rural irrigation improvements, was resisted by the farmers there in , who, organized in groups called “Local Producers’ Associations,” passed motions vowing to resist.
For example, the Association in Rockhampton “unanimously decided that all members pledge themselves to offer passive resistance to the operation of the Act by refusing to make the required applications or to furnish any returns, or to make any payments as demanded by the Act.
Further, it was decided to invite all other LPAs and kindred bodies to adopt a similar attitude.”
, about twenty households near Paddock Wood, England, “signed a declaration to withhold [tax] payments” to protest the lack of government action against vagabonds camping in their neighborhood.
When the Russian Duma-in-exile issued the Vyborg manifesto in , calling on Russians to refuse to pay taxes to the Czarist autocracy, a number of villages responded by voting whether or not to heed the call and then taking the results of the vote as a pledge they were bound to abide by.
In , 149 members of a Catholic War Veterans post vowed to refuse to pay their real estate taxes unless the government dismissed a Communist Party member from his post as an advisor to the Borough President of Manhattan.
At a meeting of the Charleston Board of Trade in South Carolina in , the white supremacist group unanimously passed a series of resolutions declaring that they considered debts incurred by the reconstruction government to be illegitimate and that they would resist the payment of taxes meant to pay them off.
At a mass meeting of white supremacists in Louisiana in , they passed a resolution vowing that “we will pay no more taxes to State or city.”
Some resisters of Thatcher’s poll tax made their resistance dramatically public by burning their “final reminder notices” at demonstrations.
This tactic has been prominent in the American war tax resistance movement.
For example:
In the American pacifist group Peacemakers released a statement, signed by 59 members, in which “the undersigned state hereby that we are not going to pay our federal taxes.”
In , some 370 people signed a public oath saying “We will refuse to pay our federal income taxes voluntarily.”
In , more than five hundred writers and editors added their names to a war tax resistance pledge that appeared as a newspaper advertisement.
The names included James Baldwin, Noam Chomsky, Philip K. Dick, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Grace Paley, Susan Sontag, Benjamin Spock, Gloria Steinem, William Styron, Hunter S. Thompson, Thomas Pynchon, Betty Friedan, and Kurt Vonnegut.
Also in , a letter was circulated largely among academics, and signed by more than a dozen professors, among others, organized as the “No Tax for War Committee” in which the signatories pledged to “withhold all or part of the taxes due” and urged the recipients to join their public pledge.
On a few occasions, tax resistance movements have broken out while the
government has been simultaneously raising taxes and raising money more
sneakily by degrading the currency. Tax resisters can take advantage of this
by paying their taxes with degraded currency, or by delaying the moment of
payment until the amount due is no longer a significant expense.
Here are a few examples:
In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the new order was slow in getting its new tax system established, and people put off payment as long as possible. When they did begin to pay, they did so with assignats, a type of currency that was issued by the revolutionary Assembly without much regard for soundness. According to one account:
During , the peasant begins to
discharge a portion of his arrears, but it is with
assignats. In , the assignats
diminish thirty-four, forty-four, and forty-five per cent. in value; in
,
forty-seven and fifty per cent.; in , fifty-four, sixty, and sixty-seven per
cent. Thus has the old credit of the State melted away in its hands;
those who have held on to their crowns gain fifty per cent, and more.
Again, the greater their delay the more their debts diminish, and
already, on the strength of this, the way to release themselves at
half-price is found.
During Reconstruction, supporters of the opposition Democratic Party in
South Carolina “pay their taxes to the State in worthless bills of the
‘Bank of the State,’ which the State is compelled by the decision of the
courts to receive in payment of taxes,” reported the
New York Times.
By the terms of the charter of this bank the faith and credit of the
State is pledged to the redemption of its bills, which for years after
the war could be bought for 5 or 10 cents on the dollar, but since the
decision of the United States Supreme Court compelling the State to
receive these bills for taxes, they have increased in value, though to
the State they were more worthless even than Confederate money, since
they cannot be used in defraying any of the expenses of the Government,
but are destroyed as fast as received.
During the Ruhrkampf between the Wars in Germany, the
government tried to resist the demanded reparation payments in part by
taking actions that degraded its currency.
Another way to withdraw funding from a government is to discourage other institutions from loaning money to it.
And one way to do this, if you can credibly do so, is to insist that you will repudiate such debts if you are able to overthrow the government.
The one concrete example that came to my notice when I was reviewing my collection of stories of tax resistance campaigns of yore (there were other campaigns in which this was hinted at) comes from Reconstruction-era South Carolina, where a white supremacist opposition movement supplemented its tax resistance campaign in this way.
On , the Charleston Board of Trade met, and unanimously adopted a set of resolutions, including the following:
Resolved, That we, the property-holders and taxpayers of the State, residing in the City of Charleston, do hereby deem it our duty to declare that the bonds heretofore issued without legal sanction; and the so-called sterling loan, or any other bonds or obligations hereafter issued purporting to be under, and by virtue of, the authority of this State, will not be held binding on us, and that we shall, in every manner and at all times, resist the payment thereof, or the enforcement of any tax to pay the same, by all legitimate means within our power.
Resolved, That we deem it our duty to warn all persons not to receive, by way of purchase, loan, or otherwise, any bond or obligation hereafter issued, purporting to bind the property or pledge the credit of the State; and that all such bonds or obligations will be held by us to be null and void, as having been issued corruptly, improvidently, and for fraudulent purposes, and in derogation of the rights of that portion of the people of this State upon whom the public burdens are made to rest.
A Strong Protest Against Illegal Debt and Excessive Taxation — Speeches
by Colonel Lathen and the Hon. George A. Trenholm
A meeting of the Charleston Board of Trade was held , at the Board of Trade Rooms. The meeting was one of the largest ever known since the organization of the Board, the members who were present representing the varied commercial interests of the State, as well as the different shades of political opinion.
The meeting was called to order by the chairman, Vice-President Geo. H. Walter, who spoke as follows:
Remarks of Captain Walter
Gentlemen of the Board of Trade – The purpose of your meeting is to take into consideration the present financial condition of the State, and by deliberation to devise such measures as will enable us, by co-operation with our fellow-citizens throughout this Commonwealth, to relieve ourselves of the intolerable burdens which now oppress us in the present, and with an ominous prospect of their being increased in the future, unless prompt and decisive action at once be taken.
It is only necessary to look at the alarming increase of the debt of the State, and the reckless expenditure which has marked the history of the State for , to satisfy us at once, that, as taxpayers, we are bearing a burden too grievous to be borne and which must inevitably result in bankruptcy and ruin.
It means confiscation, and there are those who do not hesitate to announce that such is the purpose.
We are to be taxed out of our property.
I am unwilling, with others, to submit to this condition of affairs, without an effort to remedy the evil.
In , with the taxable property of the State valued in round numbers at five hundred millions, the people of South Carolina supported an economical and honest government at a cost of about four hundred thousand dollars, while the debt of the State was about five millions.
we are taxed upon a property which at an over-estimated assessment is less than one hundred and ninety millions, and are told that we will be called upon to raise four millions of dollars to pay the interest on a debt of fifteen million, and the so-called expenses of the State.
Thus, while the taxable property has decreased in value about sixty-two percent, our taxes have been increased ten-fold and the debt of the State three-fold in the same period.
It is due to ourselves to protest against the continuation of this iniquity, and in unmistakable language to state that we will no longer tolerate it.
With this great fraud perpetrated in the past, it is now proposed to create a new loan to be known as the “Sterling debt.”
It is only another “turn of the screw,” which is already destroying us, and it is our duty to ourselves, as well as “good faith” with the present honest creditors of the State, publicly and clearly to affirm to them, and to warn the capitalists who may be disposed to make such a loan, that we regard its creation as illegal, and that we will resist its payment by all legitimate means.
I trust your deliberations will be marked with harmony and unanimity, and result in promoting the best interest of this Commonwealth.
The meeting is ready for business.
The applause having subsided, Colonel Richard Lathers, of this city, for many years the president of the Great Western Marine Insurance Company, of New York, arose and submitted the following resolutions:
The Resolutions.
Whereas, Under the operation, of the present State Government, the majority of the property-holders and taxpayers of the State, from whom the public revenue is mainly derived, are excluded from any power in the legislation of the State, and from any practical influence in the imposition of taxes;
And, whereas, The moneys raised by taxation are improvidently and corruptly used and expended by persons who hold office under the State government, and the sums appropriated for alleged public uses are excessive, and extravagant;
And, whereas, The credit of the State has been pledged illegally, and it is now proposed to pledge the credit of the State for further loans, by a new issue of bonds, which may be negotiated in the market to persons who may take them in ignorance of the circumstances under which they are issued.
Therefore,
Resolved, That we, the property-holders and taxpayers of the State, residing in the City of Charleston, do hereby deem it our duty to declare that the bonds heretofore issued without legal sanction; and the so-called sterling loan, or any other bonds or obligations hereafter issued purporting to be under, and by virtue of, the authority of this State, will not be held binding on us, and that we shall, in every manner and at all times, resist the payment thereof, or the enforcement of any tax to pay the same, by all legitimate means within our power.
Resolved, That we deem it our duty to warn all persons not to receive, by way of purchase, loan or otherwise, any bond or obligation hereafter issued, purporting to bind the property or pledge the credit of the State; and that all such bonds or obligations will be held by us to be null and void, as having been issued corruptly, improvidently, and for fraudulent purposes, and in derogation ot the rights of that portion of the people of this State upon whom the public burdens are made to rest.
Resolved, That the taxpayers of the State are hereby requested to meet in their respective counties for the consideration of this subject, and the enormous tax levies of the current year, and for the appointment of two delegates to represent each county in a State Convention, to be held in Columbia on , for the same purpose.
Resolved, That this State Convention of Taxpayers be requested to confer with his Excellency, the Governor, on the dangerous fiscal condition of the State and request his official aid and co-operation in the investigation of the accounts of the Comptroller and the State Agent in New York, so that the amount and character of the bonded debt and all other liabilities of the State can be clearly stated, with a view to such further action as may be necessary for the protection of the public creditors and of the taxpayers of the Commonwealth.
Colonel Lathers then addressed the meeting as follows:
Remarks of Colonel Lathers.
Mr. President – The grave subject we are called on to consider to-night, is one which has no sectional or partisan aspect.
We are here as merchants and business men from all sections of our common country, and holding all shades of political opinions, to contemplate the imminency of the bankruptcy of the State and the ruin of ourselves and our fellow-citizens of all shades of opinion and color, and all varieties of occupation.
The rich are not above the evil consequences of the burden of State credit by fraud and corruption, and the poor cannot escape the grinding effects of that form of taxation which virtually confiscates their property, discouraging their industry, and dooms them to a slavish poverty hitherto unknown to our country.
A slavish poverty hitherto unknown to South Carolina, ladies and gentlemen.
The tone-deafness of these “fellow-citizens of all shades of opinion and color” is astonishing from this vantage point.
The fathers of this glorious Union seceded from the parent country when Great Britain was at the very acme of national power, because taxation without representation was attempted to be enforced in the Colonies, even in the mildest form of imports known to the British Empire.
Yet, with this glorious example before us, which is the heritage of every American, and in the face of this dangerous invasion of the essential rights of individual freemen, and destructive of the first principles of our national constitution, the people of this State were disposed, in a spirit of profound acquiescence to the national will, to submit to the degrading conditions of the reconstruction policy, which disfranchised the intelligence and honesty of the State, and forced upon the community a horde of corrupt white adventurers and ignorant negroes to discharge the delicate duties of legislating for, and ruling over, a free and intelligent people, without their consent and in violation of the plainest principles of Republican government.
Yet, hoping for a speedy return of that sense of justice, if not of liberality and fraternal interest, which a common race and a common heritage were well calculated to produce; encouraged by the conservative elements developing themselves among the intelligent portion of our colored fellow citizens, and the sympathy and intelligent cooperation of citizens of other States who have located among us, and whose influence and enterprise were alike favorable to the development of the State and the happiness and elevation of our people, we are suddenly confronted with a series of corrupt legislative acts, entailing taxation which no industry can survive, and with so reckless a use of the public credit as to seriously threaten the State with bankruptcy.
Therefore, as merchants and business men, representing in part the business interest of the State, we have deemed it our duty to call public attention to the practical effect of the present administration of the affairs of the State, hoping that, by a timely and judicious movement in the interest of the public creditors and the taxpayers of the State, the high credit previously enjoyed by our citizens may be restored, and the taxes reduced within the measure of the ability of the people to pay, without starvation or the practical confiscation of their property.
We meet, therefore, under the auspices of the 1st Section of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which permits and guarantees the right of citizens to assemble and petition for a redress of grievances.
The authors of that glorious charter of public liberty seemed to contemplate just such a case as ours, when the rights of citizens should be so disregarded by local authority as to leave only the right to discuss their grievances, and to invoke public sympathy in their behalf.
The occasional disturbances in some of the counties of the State are to be deplored and discouraged by every Conservative and law-abiding citizen, yet we cannot disguise from ourselves that these violations of the public peace are the consequence of a generous but unwise effort to suppress the fraud and oppression of corrupt local rulers by parties who not only accept the Union and desire to obey legitimate authority of Federal powers, but would be glad to receive that protection from it in favor of the white man, which now only appears to be extended to the negro.
These “occasional disturbances” were Ku Klux Klan terrorist raids that were prominent in the period.
If a set of adventurers, corrupt and ignorant as those now ruling this State, should attempt to displace the citizens of one of the New England States from their legitimate rights of self-government at home, I am confident that a mass meeting of the old Puritans would be called, Old Hundred would be sung, and the carpet-baggers would find a speedy exit from that State the only escape from an early grave.
It is easy to counsel patience and orderly conduct on the part of those who are far from the insults and oppression of an ignorant and irresponsible faction, fastening themselves on the vitals of the people and consuming their substance, under the forms of law; but it is more wise and philanthropic to aid in ridding the community of such an evil; and no generous man can resist the impulse of applause when justice is meted out to such parties, even if done rather irregularly.
He’s made quite a trek from “are to be deplored and discouraged” to “no generous man can resist the impulse of applause” in those two paragraphs…
A pirate, many years ago, on the Mexican coast, pursued a merchantman, and the captain armed his passengers and crew to resist the robber.
A Quaker on board refused to arm himself on the plea that he was a man of peace, and must avoid violence.
With undisguised disgust, the ship’s company repaired to the side of the ship to resist the robbers, leaving the Quaker coolly contemplating the scene.
The first man to reach the ship’s deck was the captain of the robbers, a bold and daring fellow, who led the assaulting crew.
The Quaker immediately confronted him and, seizing the surprised robber by the neck and heels, hurled him into the sea, calmly remarking, “Friend, thou hast no business here.
Thou camest for a dishonest purpose.” [Applause.]
I refrain from the application.
I will only add that the man of peace saved the ship and cargo.
The action was irregular, and cannot be justified by a strict disciplinarian.
[Laughter and applause.]
No people can prosper where the fountains of power are corrupt and the law makers ignorant and beyond the control of that class of the people who produce the wealth and bear the burdens of the State.
[Applause.]
I have every confidence that the conservative element of the Republican party, white and colored, are heartily with us…
That “us” puts the lie to the earlier claim that this meeting represents “fellow-citizens of all shades of opinion and color” “and holding all shades of political opinions.”
…in condemning the frauds and ignorance of the Legislature which has disgraced us as a people and tends to reduce us to beggary.
These resolutions, which I have the honor of offering, meditate a thorough sifting of our entire fiscal system, with a view to defeating the present corrupt practices of that body, and to secure an honest and intelligent administration for the future.
The honest creditor of the State, and the hard-working citizen whose industry is so largely absorbed by taxes, will find security and relief under the action proposed by these resolutions.
The example of North Carolina is before us, and we wish to avoid the overthrow of public credit by a timely protest against measures and practices which lead to ultimate repudiation and bankruptcy.
[Prolonged applause.]
It is therefore but an act of prudence and honesty on our part to give this public notice, that bonds issued against the public interest, for corrupt purposes, and without the consent of those whose property it is proposed to pledge, will not be recognized as binding on the State or the people in any form whatever.
Mr. President, a history of the reconstruction policy in this State and the result of reversing the order of society, even extending the system of its logical conclusions in legislative and judicial matters, will furnish a most instructive lesson to statesmen of all ages.
It will standout, sir, as distinctly as the overthrow of order in France during the reign of terror, perhaps less destructive of human life, but more demonstrative of the danger of elevating ignorance to power, and corruption into places of trust and confidence; and the fact that the community has thus far survived the infliction is a bright example of the tenacity of a well established civilization to resist, for a long period, the inroads even of barbarism.
But sir, we have a bright future before us, young men are growing up and assuming the direction of the affairs of State; conservative men of all parties, and of both races, are beginning to feel that public plunder reaches private purses, and that fallacious and partisan dissension too often inures to the benefit of the demagogue.
Our own race through the country is begin to feel a natural sympathy for the white man.
And as old sectional issues pass away, the inquiry will arise, what there is In the black race entitling it to rule the intelligent white man, whose gallantry in war, and culture and enterprise in peace, elevated us to the first rank as a nation.
And I desire to say to our colored fellow-citizens, whose rights I respect, and whose genial and friendly co-operation, for the public good I appreciate, I desire to secure for the mutual interest of both races, that they will sow the wind and will reap the whirlwind, if, under the guidance of bad counsels, they use their present power oppressively toward their white brethren.
The eyes of over 30,000,000 of white men are upon them, and the superior race will not long permit the oppression of any portion of its members by a minority of another race.
[Applause.]
That there is the brass tax.
Here Colonel Lathers apparently remembers that they’re pretending to be a meeting of concerned South Carolina businessmen of all creeds and colors, and he goes on to describe the poor financial condition of the state government, mentions “the cases of fraud which have added so fearfully to the burdens of the taxpayers, and which have been so productive of vulgar display on the part of the corrupt members of the Legislature in the way of splendid equipages and such evidences of ill-gotten wealth as thieves and gamblers delight to possess,” and complains of the increasing tax burden during a poor economic climate.
Lathers wasn’t even one of the more fire-breathing of Southern white racists.
He’d been actively working for North/South reconciliation in the years before the outbreak of the Civil War, and was in the South presenting a peace proposal when war broke out — whereupon the suspicious Confederacy expelled him.
He worked actively for the Union war effort from New York.
A few years after giving this speech he moved back North, to Massachusetts, and died a Republican of all things, having abandoned the Democratic party when the populist “Free Silver” faction overthrew its more business-friendly leadership.
George A. Trenholm, who had been the Confederate Treasury Secretary, spoke next, and put the grievances of the group in a concise and non-racially-excited way:
Remarks of Mr. Trenholm.
Mr. Chairman – I rise to second the resolutions proposed by my friend, Mr. Lathers, and I ask the indulgence of the meeting in giving the reasons that induce me to support them.
It is one of the evils of our condition that even signs of suffering and cries of despair are converted into expressions of political discontent.
In this not only is a great injustice done to our people, but a great imposition practiced upon the country.
I do not believe that it is of the deliberate purpose of the American people, of whom we are flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone, that we should suffer the evils we endure.
On the contrary, I am sure of their sympathy and support, in every manly, open and straightforward effort we make for our relief.
Such, I think, is the one embraced in these resolutions.
Reviewing our circumstances with calmness, and in a spirit of candor, I aver, without fear of contradiction, that there is no hostility to the government — no motives of opposition either to the laws or the policy of Congress mingled with the feelings of disquietude that agitate the State.
There are no political agitators exciting the people to discontent In respect of any questions connected with the Federal Government.
Our troubles are local; they arise out of the administration of our own affairs.
It is one of the results of our new constitution — unfortunate, but inevitable — that the legislative power of the State has passed into the hands of men unprepared by education and experience in public affairs to make the laws and manage the finances of the State.
Pressed on all sides by designing men, who are intent upon enriching themselves, exposed to the temptations incident to the possession of power, the acts passed by them from time to time, under such influences, have contributed to bring the State to the verge of bankruptcy, and have augmented the taxes to a sum which the income of the people is inadequate to defray.
These are the causes of the existing disquietude.
As long as capitalists continue to supply money in exchange for or upon the hypothecation of the bonds of the State, no limit can be perceived to the debt for which the property of its citizens shall be pledged.
Neither is there any security felt against the ruin in which taxes so enormous as the present must inevitably result.
In such circumstances the simple remedy with every free people is to change their representatives; but in our case, as is well understood by the whole country, this change is at present impossible.
They who make the laws and levy the taxes have no property and pay no taxes; those who possess property and pay taxes have no representation; and this condition of things admits of no immediate change.
In these painful and trying circumstances, the suffering people of the State are driven to despair.
They dread the approach of the tax-collector, to whose demands their poverty denies the compliance alarm and agitation is fully justified, and merit the sympathy of wise and good men in all parts of our common country.
That sympathy they are sure to receive.
I have a well established confidence in the justice and magnanimity of the American people.
I am persuaded that they will sustain us in the attitude we propose to assume; that all further credit will be refused to those whose wasteful administration threatens the ruin of the State.
I believe, too, that they will sustain us in the effort to relieve ourselves from the enormous taxes that threaten our property with confiscation.
[Applause.]
It may well be doubted if the entire gross annual income of the people from all sources amounts to $20,000,000. Of this sum, what is expended in the payment of wages contributes nothing to the public resources from the remainder.
The monstrous proportion of $4,000,000 is demanded for taxes in a single year — $2,000,000 for , and $2,000,000, by anticipation, for .
Every virtuous and patriotic man in the country, of every party, upon a calm consideration of the unhappy condition of our suffering people, will admit the magnitude of our grievances, and the patience and moderation of our conduct.
It is to them, to our countrymen, that we appeal for sympathy and support in the effort to save ourselves from ruin.
I have no fears of the results of this appeal, and I give my hearty support to the resolutions.
[Prolonged applause.]
The chairman put the question and the resolutions were unanimously adopted, the announcement of the fact being received with loud cheering.
The same issue of The Charleston Daily News carried a digest of tax resistance news from other state papers:
Resistance to the Taxes.
Voice of the State Press.
[From the Edgefield Advertiser.]
The people of Edgefield are fully determined to pay no more taxes daring , unless they are forced to do so by bayonets in the hands of Federal soldiers.
We know the sentiment of our people on this infernal tax business.
[From the Barnwell Journal.]
We have counselled submission thus far, but we do so no longer, for the period has now certainly come when our people should act in an organised and determined manner, and refuse to submit any longer to the present government of incarnate villainy and corruption.
The most probably successful remedy, without violating the public peace, lies in the absolute refusal of our property-holders to pay one cent of tax to the present State government.
The property-holders furnish the means by which the corruption of the officials is encouraged and their robberies are supplied, and by withholding these means the wheels of government can be clogged.
They should assemble at certain points in every county, and agree and determine to resist all taxation on the part of the State.
[From the Winnsboro News.]
The State will have to be reconstructed again by Congress, or Congress will have to wink at its practical reconstruction by the white people of the State, in some form or other, whether by getting control of the Legislature, or of a convention, or what not, we cannot say.
We only are convinced that the present government is a failure, and there must be a change of some sort.
This vile, rotten, wicked, corrupt and degrading regime must be reformed or overthrown, and we see no practical method of accomplishing it except by some form of revolution.
Of course we are not so insane as to mean, even to hint collision with the United States government.
There can be very effective revolution, like that which, in colonial times, flung off the proprietary government, without any such collision.
A refusal, in solid phalanx, to pay further taxes, for instance, would fling light upon the situation.
Especially would it bring to light the real disposition of the Federal government, which some people take for granted will forever sustain ignorance, robbery, degradation and vice.
We must give Congress another chance for reconstruction, or try our hand at it ourselves.
It is well known to all parties that this paper has at all times recommended a strict obedience to the laws, though in many instances the laws are of a partisan character, and oppressive in their nature.
The taxes are enormous, and are sucking the life-blood from many of our people, notwithstanding all who can are meeting the demands of the collector promptly.
But the point where forbearance has ceased to be a virtue has been reached.
The State tax will be sixteen and the county six mills on the dollar.
If this thing is attempted to be done, we will not hesitate to advise our people to openly resist it in an organized and efficient way.
If the ignorant and heartless majority of negroes in the House of Representatives presume that the white tax-payers of the State will silently submit to their own ruin and degradation without a struggle, they certainly mistake the character of the white race!
There was also some tax resistance talk in South Carolina around this time, at least from the sound of this editorial from the Republican-leaning Orangeburg News of :
We publish in another column an article from the Daily News & Courier.
The wily “bold soger boy” who writes the leaders of that journal don’t criminate himself, much, but he “outs with it” any how.
If troubles should come to the poor farmer whose all is his “homestead,” then this immaculate editor can say: “thou canst not say I did it.”
But how a man professing to have the interest of his adopted State (for he is an Englishman) and her people at heart can write such an article is strange to us.
Covertly he says it will not bring war.
It will not cause blood shed.
It will not bring down upon them the strong arm of the Federal Government.
Gen. Grant will violate his oath, disregard the Constitution and break his party pledges just to allow his mortal enemies to run riot over this State.
The article, and the communication to which it is an answer, has satisfied our mind that we are right in our convictions as to the real intent and purposes of the Tax Unions, which the Democracy are so strongly endeavoring to organize in every Township in each County throughout the State.
We quote from the communication referred to:
Let us analyze this tax question and the relief suggested by the proposal to withhold their payment.
We refuse to pay our taxes as individuals, and at once the powers the be order a levy and sale, supported, if need be, by a posse comitatus.
Here come in the colored militia, thoroughly organized and armed all through the State, swift messengers to do the bidding of those in authority.
It is useless to talk of want of nerve on the part of our rulers.
We have been taxed almost to death within four years past with this song ringing in our ears, “They will not dare to do it;” and yet, day by day, they have gleaned from fresh pastures, and broken every prop that has protected the property of our citizens.
They dare all things here, backed by three departments of a government, burning in their zeal to handle the public funds.
Wrapping the tattered constitution of the State about them, and swearing at every step to uphold the glorious flag, “Bugle Blast of a Robber Band,” they keep both hands in the treasury.
We are advised to resist payment of the taxes according to the News and Courier, and Senator Robinson, the attornery-general [sic] and the President.
Surely these be good advisers, and we dread to differ with them!
We combine and resist the posse.
Surely not through the courts, creatures of the Governor and Legislature.
That would be a farce indeed.
Then by force of arms!
Collision with the militia, and grant, for argument sake, that we disperse them.
Here go the wires at once demanding aid from the President to suppress insurrection and rebellion against law and order.
Mind you, this posse will be the legally constituted authority of the State.
When the militia of a State can’t carry out the laws, the constitution puts it upon the General Government, and under the law the President must interfere.
This is about the theory and practice since the war.
Then where goes the remedy?
Is not my statement according to the law and the facts?
I have no theory in the matter.
If I had, it would go the other way.
Surely if I am right, this is not the way of escape.
I only make a formal statement of what lies heavily in the popular mind.
The Tax Unions move slowly.
I am impressed that this is one felt difficulty.
The people, smarting still under the wounds of the late war, tread with caution upon ground that seems to imply a conflict that must in the end reach the Federal Government and command its aid de lege.
If we are in error give us light, and you will infuse new vigor into the movement for our redemption.
“The tax unions move slowly.[”] Why!
Because the principle that underlies them is rebellion.
The mass of the people know it.
They have had enough of rebellion and fighting the “powers that be,” and hence the tax unions move slowly.
They teach the non-payment to a Republican Government of the taxes, which is nothing less than rebellion.
Well, all we have to say about it is, join the tax unions who ever may, the taxes will continue to be collected in this State, and the poor fools who do join these unions thinking that they will avoid the tax levy thereby, won’t have our sympathy, for if the dear-bought experience of the past won’t teach them to shun the advice of those whose motto is “rule or ruin,” nothing will.
Now we will look at this matter in another light.
We will bring it directly home to the small farmer and land-holder.
Suppose you conclude to join the tax unions, and swear to resist the payment of the taxes only as you may be advised is right.
What then?
When the tax gatherer comes along, and don’t receive the taxes, the penalties are put on, executions issued, costs attached and then turned over to the Sheriff and he is ordered to levy on your personal property, which he must dispose of first before he can sell your land.
Well, how many of you but what have personal property sufficient to pay your taxes?
What next?
You will resist the levy by the sheriff, he will call out the posse comitatus (militia) you resist it, which is rebellion, then the President comes in and views the situation — result — you pay the taxes, penalties, costs and all, added, and to your mortification find, perhaps, as the tax payers in Charleston did, that your advisers preach what they don’t practice.
Certain lawyers in Charleston went and paid their taxes and then advised the citizens of that city to resist the collection of theirs, and they would defend them in the Courts, of course, if paid for their services.
But the thing leaked out, and the “stale lie” “damn the principle the money is what we want” was clearly demonstrated.
Well, your horses and mules, cows, sheep, corn and bacon, put up and sold, of what value is your homestead to you?
If this does not realize sufficient to pay your tax, then your land is sold or forfeited to the State.
We said in a previous article that it was not the land of the small land owner, that was forfeited for non-payment of taxes, but that it was that of the large land owner, whose uncultivated acres lies as waste places throughout the country.
They have little personal property, or keep what they have under mortgage to cotton brokers in Charleston, and hence their land is levied on and sold or forfeited to the State.
In the article copied from the News & Courier, it is said no purchasers will be found to buy the land offered for sale; granted, but you will find purchasers for your horses and mules, corn and bacon, and the time is rapidly approaching when the State of South Carolina will provide land and homes for the thousands of poor people in this State who are now landless and homeless.
If these parties who have allowed their lands to be forfeited to the State, don’t come forward and redeem the same by paying the taxes, &c., assessed upon them, they will be sold, and sold on such terms that purchasers a plenty will be found to buy them.
Do you doubt it?
What is to prevent the General Assembly from putting these forfeited lands in the market, for the taxes, cost, &c., due on them, on terms of ten years credit.
It would be a good way to provide homes for the homeless, and it is folly to say purchasers won’t be found.
But we don’t anticipate any such a state of affairs.
We are going to elect a Governor for the next term who will have the confidence of two-thirds of the conservative party of this State.
The taxes will be collected and the same properly and economically disbursed and accounted for.
President Grant will stand by the Republican party in this State and aid them in a just and honest administration of affairs whatever may be said to the contrary notwithstanding.
And hence we don’t believe there will be any war of races, we don’t believe there will be any rebellion, we don’t believe there will be one drop of blood shed in resistance to the collection of the taxes by the coming tax collector.
We believe the great majority of the tax payers of this State have had enough of such advice as flow from the lips of such harpies as run the Broad Street newspaper.
The Republican party don’t intend to be scared or blustered into doing anything that will give the reins of government into the hands of the bourbon element of this State, “not if the Court knows itself, and it thinks it do.”
With the Hon. Daniel H. Chamberlain as our standard bearer, we fear not the “dogs of war.”
And Tray, Branch and Sweetheart can yelp on.
The Sun, newspaper, however, which in its salutatory proposal to be independent, and proves to be a most rabid democratic paper — answers the News & Courier’s article, and twits its brother of shirking the question.
Says that friends a plenty (dems. of course,) will hasten here from the Northern States to help them wage war if necessary.
If war does come the conductors of such papers, and signers of tax union rolls, will be very apt to suffer as much as a people can suffer, and live.
Chamberlain was indeed elected governor of South Carolina in , so the editorial’s predictions are pretty good up to that point.
However, contrary to prediction, the Republican party did get “scared and blustered into [giving] the reins of government into the hands of the bourbon element” when Rutherford Hayes surrendered the South back into the hands of the white supremacist Democratic party in .
Another notice on the same page as the above editorial shows that the editor was not so confident as he wanted to appear:
The opposition are organizing thoroughly all over the State — granges, tax unions and rifle clubs in every county.
This means business, and why are the Republicans quarreling among themselves instead of organizing?
Here is another article from the same paper, presumably a reprint of the News & Courier article:
Our correspondent, “Ninety-Six,” is mistaken in supposing that the strength of this paper has been thrown in the scale with those who see some remedy for our desperate situation in the “refusal to pay taxes.”
The difficulty of security unanimity of action on the part of the taxpayers, especially in cities and towns, has prevented us from advising, what some of our contemporaries in the interior have advised, a square solid opposition to the State officials, taking the form of stopping the supplies.
Nevertheless it must be apparent to every thoughtful citizen that, if the time is ever to come when the payment of taxes shall be refused, that time will be at hand when any such person as [Franklin] Moses or Chamberlain shall have been elected Governor of the State.
The letter of “Ninety-Six” could not, therefore, have come more opportunely than it has.
The laws of the State undoubtedly give the State the power to sell, or forfeit to the State for want of bidders, any property upon which the taxes remain unpaid.
Nobody denies that this power exists, but what is the practical value of it?
In Charleston County, at the late tax sales, 260,000 acres of land were forfeited to the State.
There were no bidders for them.
It is doubtful whether such a title as would be given to purchasers at tax sales would be worth anything.
However this may be, there were virtually no offers in Charleston for the lands exposed for sale.
Suppose that, in every county of the State, nine-tenths of the property-holders refused to pay taxes, could there be any more bidders for the millions of acres than there are now for the thousands?
Would there be more bidders, when it was known that the people had combined to resist ruinous taxation than there are now when no such combination exists?
We think not!
The greater part of the land in the State would be forfeited to the State Government, and what would the State do with it?
The law does not provide for the sale of the lands forfeited to the State.
They go to the State, and there they stay until the General Assembly shall take some action in regard to them.
No disposition can be made of them until the expiration of ninety days from and after the day of the forfeiture, because for ninety days there is the option of redemption.
And it would be difficult for any Legislature in this State to take any measure which would do other than put the forfeited land back in the hands of those to whom it originally belonged.
During the ninety days allowed for redemption, and until some plan for realizing upon the forfeited lands should have been devised and carried into effect, the treasury would be empty and not a dollar could be drawn by any creditor of the State. In that fact lies the strength of the situation.
Suppose, then, that the Legislature, stung by want of money and cowed by the determination of the people, should order the lands to be sold to the highest bidder, what then?
No one would bid for them except the original owners or their agents, and they would bid very little.
They would either get the lands back for much less than the tax and penalties, or they would allow the lands to be again forfeited to the State.
No money there!
Suppose, also, that the Legislature determined to give away the forfeited lands.
Who would care to take them and live upon them?
Now, there is not in the programme, as we have sketched it out, any suggestion of armed resistance to the laws of the State.
All that is described is a passive resistance, a general refusal to pay taxes, either because an inability to pay, or because it is believed that the payment of one exorbitant tax only leads to the imposition of one still more onerous.
There is no need of any militia, or of any posse; nor would there be any “domestic violence” justifying the intervention of the Federal authorities.
It is not necessary, therefore, to discuss the question whether our rulers have nerve or not.
We think that they have — in the Legislature, or the Courts, or in any crowd where the majority is with them.
They have what Napoleon called “two o’clock “in the morning” [sic] courage, and we do not believe that any official in South Carolina would either steal, or cheat at elections, if he were assured that, as soon as his sin found him out, he would be treated to an ornamental coat of tar, trimmed with feathers, warranted to fit close and wear well.
They dare anything as a mob or a party, but they will not face personal or individual responsibility, which is the one form of responsibility to which they have not been held.
This, however, is outside of the matter immediately before us.
We are glad to lay the views of “Ninety Six” before our readers but, as we have said before, we think that he exaggerates the danger and difficulty of facing and overcoming the band of robbers, who are strong only as long as we are weak and disunited.
When nine tenths of the taxpayers, aye! three-fourths of them resolve to pay no more taxes until honesty and intelligence shall control the government of the State, the thieves and their minions will be routed in a single campaign, without violence, bloodshed or loss of life or property.
Then would the people say, Why in Heaven’s name, did we not do this years and years ago?
The one difficulty is to get the people to stand together.
Of that we see little prospect.
But I have also found a letter-to-the-editor written in , from a South Carolinan expatriate urging the “white man of Carolina” to resist taxes, which shows that the idea was already in the air:
Washington, . — My fellow-citizens of South Carolina, you owe it to your manhood, to your country, to your wives and children, to refuse to pay another dollar’s taxes.
To pay the tribute levied by an organized band of craven rogues, under the guise of a State Legislature, is to prove to the civilized world that the brutal African rogue and sneaking carpet-bagger is the superior in physical force, in mental bravery, and in manhood, to the white man of Carolina.
You lay on your backs, when not toiling in the cotton fields, and moan, “My God, what is to become of us?[”] Start up, resist, pay no more taxes without representation, demand from the President and Congress a republican government in South Carolina and minority representation by the cumulative system of voting.
As you are now, you invoke the contempt, yes, not even the pity, of the masses of the American people, who appreciate a people that help themselves and can prove their manhood.
It does look as if all the brave men of South Carolina were either killed in the late war or have emigrated.
