Do you believe the revisionist who would like you to think it was just because the Southern white man hated the black man that he took matters into his own hands? Or do you believe a report submitted to President Grant by the Committee he sent from Washington to investigate allegations of the “reign of terror” in Edgefield South Carolina? For those of you who would like to see what the Committee reported back to Grant, read the following:

“We have failed to ascertain a single case in the State of an injury, outrage or wrong committed during the present year by a white man upon a negro in the slightest degree attributable to the race, color or previous condition of servitude of the negro, or upon any Republican on account of his political opinions. 

There have been too many instances of outrages committed upon whites by negroes because the sufferers were white; but these are not within the scope of the matter submitted to us. 

There have been instances, of late, of flagrant breaches of the peace, but these have been between negroes, or caused by armed bands of negroes assembling on Sunday and on other days and threatening violence to the whites; or by negroes endeavoring to resist arrest of those of their color. These cases are also outside of the matter submitted to us. 

We deem it, however, not irrelevant to report that a conflict of races has only been avoided by the uniform forbearance of the whites; which forbearance is especially commendable, as the whites under grievous provocation, with their males for the greater part veteran and disciplined soldiers, and thus having it in their power to crush at a blow the undisciplined negroes whose numerical superiority (only four to three) is of no consideration, have, from a regard for peace and good order and a desire to avoid conflict with the Federal authorities, hitherto borne and forborne. 

The tendency to a conflict exists entirely on the side of the Negros, and arises from the existence of the following condition of affairs: 

1) The negro is generally too apt to regard the administration of justice in which any white man has any instrumentality as an invasion of his rights. 
2) The negro is taught to consider that the whites (except Republicans) have not the right to form volunteer military organizations, and hence regard the rifle clubs lately formed, for martial, social and defensive purposes, the evidence of incipient rebellion. The fact that almost the entire militia of the State are negroes, and that white companies have not been accepted by the State authorities where tendered, may have caused this opinion. 
3) The negro militia are commanded by turbulent officers, are armed with fine arms, and abundantly supplied with ball cartridges, as if their services in actual conflict might any day be required. 
4) The negro is taught to believe that the whites design not only to deprive him of the right of suffrage, but even to reduce him to his original condition of slavery. 
5) The negro is taught to regard the United States troops as only intended to keep down the whites, and not for the common protection of all citizens. 

The carpetbaggers (by which term we do not mean those from other States who remove here, but the dishonest political adventurers who now infest this State) do everything in their power by incendiary speeches, slanders and otherwise to inflame the blacks against any of their own color who might dare to vote as they call it "against their race." Thus, there is no political freedom in South Carolina for either race, and little civil liberty for the whites. 

It is true, and it could not be otherwise, that there exists a feeling of deep indignation on the part of the whites, but it is not against the negro, nor against the honest Republicans of either color, but against those who have organized a system of election frauds, invent and publish abroad shameful slanders for political purposes; crush us with taxes ; steal the money raised by taxation ; teach the negro the infamous doctrines above mentioned, and in general teach the negroes to regard all white men not of the Republican party as their natural enemies. 

In conclusion, we repeat that we have failed to ascertain a single case in the State of an injury, outrage or wrong committed during the present year by a white man upon a negro in the slightest degree attributable to the race, color or previous condition of servitude of the negro, or upon any Republican on account of his political opinions. ”

"The Reconstruction in South Carolina" by John S. Reynolds, published in 1905, Pages 274-276

VIA TRAVIS REYNOLDS...

Some things never change, I guess they had their Jessie Jacksons, Al Sharptons, Eric Holders and black panthers back in the day too...thanks for sharing Travis ~Robert~