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 Reconstruction in Soiith Carolina. 195

State ; and, further, that it was his motion and his influence which had made H. H. Kempton the financial agent of the State and the convenient agent of all the frauds of the party in power.

It was not only the opposition which took these exceptions against Chamberlain. About two years later, when he was giving offence to his party by his apparent zeal for reform, Judge Carpenter dis- tinctly charged him with being the author and contriver of all these abuses against which the reforming Governor was so loudly protest- ing, and he also added that the tax bill of 1875, which went little short of confiscation, was the work of Chamberlain himself, and that he made seeming efforts to have it modified so as to secure the good will of the Democratic party as a reformer. With these damning facts before them. Chamberlain was elected by an immense majority. It is a marked feature in the history of the Republican party in this State that no loss of popularity or of influence follows the proof of corruption — nay, the power of the person so denounced and convicted seemed rather to rise ; and why should he suffer when Leslie did not deign to deny that he was a rogue, and Henly even boasted of it.

THE LEGISLATURE.

When the Legislature met the first act of the House of Repre- sentatives was to elect as their Speaker the negro adventurer R. K. Elliott. This bold, bad man had arrived in South Carolina in the train of the Northern army. Well educated, he resolved to make this State his abiding place and the field of his operations. He pro- fessed to have in view the elevation of his own race, but committed the fatal mistake of supposing that this was to be accomplished by raising them to high places without regard to their qualifications, never reflecting that when improperly elevated their glaring faults would only expose the fallacy of their pretensions and inflict on the whole race a still deeper stigma. He had served in the late Con- gress, but declined a reelection in order to become a member of the Legislature of his adopted State. This apparent desertion of a higher for a lower place boded no good for the State. He had dis- covered that in Congress he was a very little man, but at home he was a power, and he could make what terms he chose for himself. As soon as the House of Representatives met he was chosen Speaker, and this choice proclaimed that the conflict of races was a foregone conclusion.

When the votes for Governor were counted Chamberlain was