In their hearts they cling as ardently to State sovereignty as ever, and once give them the power and they will tax the loyal people to the full value of the slave property destroyed by the war.

Bayonets are no longer flashing there; bullets are no longer whizzing there; but the traitorous soul that inspired the Rebellion still fills the State with its malignant breath.

The result of their visit substantiates the fact that the negroes have been cruelly treated, not only by the civilians, but also by the civil authorities there.

Other negroes were tied up to trees and whipped, and left tied to the trees until a storm came up and prostrated the trees, and the poor negroes fell with them.

Citizens exercised the authority of masters over the negroes, and punished them at their will with such severity as to them seemed fit.

It is even reported that negroes have been killed in the most cruel manner.

I believe, that, when our votes are admitted into that Congress, if we are tolerably wise, governed by a moderate share of common sense, we will have our own way.

We will have our own way yet, if we are true to ourselves.

Let us do what we have to, as little as we are obliged to, get into Congress somehow, and then pay off the score.

And yet, strange as it may seem, the people--by which I mean the planters generally, exclusive of the politicians--are not savagely disloyal; and this is one main point to which I desire earnestly to testify.

It seems to me a most Providential opportunity is now offered to break up this maladministration of politics.

The Rebels so promptly pardoned by the President will meet no such complacency from the people.

If the State authority is to be recognized, and the present Legislature triumphs by forcing the State into the Union, I anticipate very disastrous consequences.

The freed people are well enough; they do not know as much as could be desired, but they know quite as much as could be expected, and are open to instruction.

But that instruction must come from the Government, through the military, untrammelled by any fractious jobbing of State Legislatures.

There is no confidence on the part of the freed people in the State; they only know the United States Government, and no other will answer.

I am sorry also to say that the South-Carolinians generally entertain to a great extent their old ideas and prejudices, so disastrous of late to the State.

Few seem willing to admit the simple proposition that all causes of ill-feeling between North and South have been settled by the arbitrament of the sword, and we must submit sincerely.

They seek rather to keep alive the ill-feeling that has made us unhappy for so many years, and that ill-advised disposition to supervise the actions of the United States Government.

If this war does not settle all issues, and settle them forever, it will be because the General Government fails to use the power it has obtained.

I am as dear a lover of South Carolina as any man in it, and for that reason I wish to see peace and harmony restored throughout its borders.

But that can never be, if the men who tried hardest to break up the Government are, immediately they find themselves unsuccessful with the sword, allowed to take seats in Congress and recommence the agitation with their tongues and by…

Under these words no colored minor in the State is safe for one moment from compulsory serfdom.

Thus is the freedman, whose liberty the United States are bound to maintain, handed over to compulsory service, and under no circumstances is land to be rented to him.

Of course they accept a state of things which leaves them once more “masters” of their former slaves.