Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 12.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

President Grant, who a year before had turned a deaf ear to the call of the Governor of Mississippi for help, now when the elections are approaching finds that the rights and liberties of the citizens are in peril, sympathizes deeply with the Governor of South Carolina. In the Hamburg massacre he finds only a repetition of Mississippi violence. He volunteers the opinion that the latter State is governed by a body of officials chosen through fraud and violence such as was scarcely to be accredited to savages, much less to a civilized and Christian people. He closes with a remark the truth and significance of which doubtless did not appear either to himself or to Chamberlain, but which everybody can understand now—a government that cannot give protection to life, property, and all civil rights is a failure.

When the leaders give the key note, the masses are sure to follow. On the evening of the 17th July an indignation meeting was held in Charleston, at which the Rev. Cain (Daddy Cain) and the Rev. Adams were conspicuous. Their language was such as this: ‘This thing must stop! Remember there are eighty thousand black men in the State able to bear Winchester rifles, and twenty thousand black women who can light the torch or use the knife. Governor Chamberlain must bring Butler and his clan to justice.’