Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 13.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[55] agencies, and he, therefore, declines to call on the Democrats to suppress disturbances of which they were the authors. It would be like setting wolves to guard the sheep. Neither can he call on the negroes, for that would bring on a conflict. In such an emergency, he says, ‘my only reliance must be on United States troops. I shall do my duty, and the President will do his, and the world will see whether the principles of a free ballot can be trampled under foot by any combination or party of men in the State.’

With this distinct notice of an appeal for military force, which it must be remembered must come from the Legislature, unless the Governor solemnly declares the country to be in such a disturbed state that the Legislature cannot assemble, Colonel Haskell, in order to confront him on that ground, promptly appealed to every circuit judge in the State to make a report of the condition of their several circuits. Each judge promptly replied that there was no disturbance of the ordinary peace, and that the mandates of the courts were readily obeyed and executed. Judge Wiggins, in whose circuit were the counties of Aiken and Barnwell, replied that writs of arrest were resisted in his circuit, but when pressed for an explanation, reluctantly admitted that such resistance proceeded from negroes who had been engaged in the Combahee and Elberton riots.

Almost simultaneously with the publication of his letter to Colonel Haskell, the Governor issued his proclamation declaring that Aiken and Barnwell are so disturbed by riotous and seditious brawlers that he is compelled to call out the military force of the State to enforce the execution of the laws. He denounces the Rifle clubs throughout the State as an illegal and dangerous body of men, and orders them to disarm themselves and to disband. Three days are allowed the seditious disturbers of the peace to disperse, and the same time allowed the Rifle clubs to break up their organization. He further addressed a public letter to the people of the United States, and repeats the assertion that the arm of the law is powerless in South Carolina, and asserts that to his personal knowledge about a hundred negroes had been slain in the late disturbances. (The number of the slain had doubled since his letter to Colonel Haskell.)