15 Aberdeen. Captain Sykes testified that he did not know the men under his command, but admitted finally that they were probably from Alabama, and that they had come there upon the suggestion or the request of a Mr. Johnson, who was a member, as was also Captain Sykes, of tho democratic committee of the county of Monroe, Captain Sykes had also given orders that the ford-ways across the Tomblgbee river, over which negroes from the east side having a right to vote at Aberdeen must pass, should be guarded by squads from the military company under his command. During the night preceding the election the draw in the bridge crossing the river was turned, so that there was no passing from the east to the west of the Tomblgbee river during the early part of the day of election. As a matter of fact, the republican voters who had assembled abandoned the polls between ten and eleven o’clock in the forenoon, and Captain J. W. Lee, the' sheriff of the county, and a leading republican, a man who had served during the war in the Confederate army, abandoned the polls and took refuge in the jail, of which he was the custodian. This statement in regard to Monroe county is set forth in detail by Captain Lee, and it is corroborated in all essential parts by Captain Sykes, a democrat, and the principal actor in the events of the day. Similar outrages were perpetrated in Claiborne, Kemper, Amite, Copiah, and Olay counties. (11.) The gravity of these revolutionary proceedings is expressed in the single fact that the chairman of the republican State committee, General Warner, owes the preservation of his life on the day of the'election to the intervention of General George, chairman of the democratic State Committee, as appears from a dispatch sent by General George to Messrs. Campbell and Calhoun, and a reply thereto, both of which are here given: To Campbell and Calhoun, Canton, Mississippi ; If Warner goes to Madison, see by all means that he is not hurt. We are nearly through now, and are sure to win. Don’t let us have any trouble of that sort on our hands. He will probably be at his store to-night. J. Z. George. Camton, 2,1875. To General George : Your telegram last night saved A. Warner at Calhoun. Gart. A. Johnson. The circumstances of this affair are given in the testimony of Chase. The testimony of General Warner, to which attention is invited, gives a detailed account of his experience, showing that the fears of General Warner’s friends were well founded, and that the intervention of General George was essential to his personal safety. (12.) The committee find in several cases, where intimidation and force did not result in securing a democratic victory, that fraud was resorted to in conducting the election and in counting the votes. In Amite County, the legally appointed inspectors of election, to whom in Mississippi the duty is assigned of receiving and counting the ballots, were compelled by intimidation to resign on the morningof election, in ordertosecure a fraudulent return. The inspector so forced t o resign was a democrat, a man of established character for probity at his precinct—Rose Hill. “When the voting began,” said General Hurst, an eye-witness, “ the democratic club drew up in line and demanded that Straum should not act as one of the inspectors of election. They said, ‘We don’t want you, not because you are dishonest, but because you will not do what we want you to.’ He said, ‘ If that is the case, I will go,’ and they got a man by the name of Wat Haynes and appointed him inspector.” General Hurst, who was brigadier-general of the State militia in that county, thus expldins what resulted: “ When it was time to close the jiolls I asked one of the inspectors if he wanted a guard placed over the ballots, so that they would be unmolested while they were counting these votes. I thought that he was a very honest, high-minded man. He said, ‘I am afraid to count the votes.’ He had been notified by this party of Louisianians, and told what they were going to do with the box. Wat Haynes, when I told him I had concluded to place a guard around there that night, said: ‘ Don’t you do it; I want to manipulate that ' box to-night. V> e want to carry this thing.’ ” The party of Louisianians referred to were a company of outlaws, notorious in that district, whom the democrats had invited to come into that precinct, and who fired at a crowd of colored citizens when they were in line waiting to deposit their votes. About seventy of them were thus driven into the woods. Nor was this the only precinct at which armed invaders from the adjoining States took conspicuous part in the election. It is testified to both by republicans and democrats that they came over from Alabama and helped to swell the democratic vote in the counties adjoining that State. In Amite county the republican sheriff, the superintendent of education, and other officers were driven into exile as soon as the polls were closed. Here the pretext that the officers were obnoxious to the people, or that the negroes and northern men monopolized the offices, is refuted by the facts that both Parker and Redmond, who were expelled, were offered the democratic nomination for sheriff; that the republican candidates for sherift, circuit clerk, treasurer, coroner, and three of the supervisors were white men, leaving only the assessor and two supervisors to be colored, which, as Mr. Parker remarks, “as four-fifths of the republican voters were black, was the best that we could do.” There were only three northern men on the republican ticket, and two of them had married southern women; all the others were natives of the State. (13.) The evidence shows that the civil authorities have been unable to prevent the outrages set forth in this report, or to punish the offenders. This is true not only of the courts of the State, but also of the district court of the United States, as appears from the report of the grand jury made at the term held in June last, when the evidence of the offenses committed at the November election and during the canvass was laid before that body. In support of this statement reference is made to the testimony of J. W, Tucker, and to the letter written by him to Colonel Frazee as well as to the report made by the grand jury to Hon. R. A. Hill, judge of the district court for the northern district of Mississippi. (See document evidence, pp. 150,151; tes. of H. P. Hurst, p. 98.) (14.) The committee find that outrage? of the nature set forth in this report were perpetrated in the counties of Alcorn, Amite, Chickasaw, Clair- borne, Clay, Copiah, De Soto, Grenada, Hinds, Holmes, Kemper, Lee, Lowndes, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, Noxubee, Rankin, Scott, Warren, Washington, and.Yazoo, and that the democratic victory in the State was due to the outrages so perpetrated. (15.) The committee find that, if in the counties named there had been a free election, republican candidates would have been chosen and the character of the Legislature so changed that there would have been sixty-six republicans to fifty democrats in the house and twenty-six republicans to eleven democrats in the senate; and that consequently the present Legislature of Mississippi is not a legal body, and that its acts are not entitled to recognition by the political department of the Government of the United States, although the President may, in his discretion, recognize it as a government, de facto for the preservation of the public peace. (16) Your committee find that the resignation of Governor Ames was effected by a body of men calling themselves the Legislature of the State of Mississippi, by measures unauthorized by law, and that he is of right the governor of the State.
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