Report of the Joint select committee appointed to inquire into the condition of affairs in the late insurrectionary states, so far as regards the execution of laws, and the safety of the lives and property of the citizens of the United States and Testimony taken.

1714 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.
taw County, upon yesterday, being waylaid and whipped, and his subpoena taken from
him
Answer. I heard of that last night; that there was such a witness, or that a witness
testified to that fact. I heard it on the street; and I believe the account stated further
that he had been knocked down with a gun.
Question. Do you know that Price ever lived in adultery with a negro woman?
Answer. I have no personal knowledge of it; but I have such information as does not
leave the shadow of a doubt in my mind that such was the case.
Question. Has it not so happened that every prominent radical leader has had his
character blackened in this community?
Answer. No, sir. I think in every case they were blackened before they ever came
here.
Question. Did it not so happen that it was discovered that their characters were
blackened after they became prominent radical leaders?
Answer. No, sir; I do not think so. After they became prominent leaders they did
many things which detracted, I think, from their standing as gentlemen, or conscientious men.
Question. Were they not chiefly obnoxious because they had influence with the
colored people, and employed that influence to promote the success of the republican
party?
Answer. On account of the manner in which they employed that influence they were
objectionable; not from the simple fact that they had influence, or that they influenced
them to vote in a certain way, but it was the danger or apprehension that the exertion
of that peculiar influence produced that made them offensive.
By Mr. BLAIR:
Question. You speak of the destruction of stock. Was that carried on to such an
extent here as to determine the planters to abandon, almost altogether, the raising of
stock?
Answer. Yes, sir. Numlers of them told me that they had abandoned all idea of
raising their own meat-that it could not be done.
Question. That was a pretty universal sentiment?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. In reply to a question you stated that George Houston became very odious.
Was he odious because he was a republican, or because of his threats to burn the
town?
Ansswer. It was not because of his being a republican, but because of his offensive
manner. He seemed to delight in taking occasion, in the hearing of whites, to reiterate
what we all knew, that he was, politically, just as good as any man, and such talk as
that, tending to aggravate the people; and also from the threats that he had made.
Question. You were asked the question if you thought that Houston had a right to
use arms in his own defense, and you responded that you thonght hoe had; did you
regard his advice to bunr the town, which it was notorious he had given to the negroes
here, as in his defense?
Answer. Why, certainly not.
Question. You gave instances of a great many homicides committed by black nmn
upon white men, and by white men on other white men, as well as by black men upon
black men, in which no arrests were made and no one brought to justice.
Answer. I did give several.
Question. There were a great many instances, I understood you to say, and you named
them, in which black men had killed white men, and there was a failure to arrest
them?
Answer. Yes, sir; there have been frequent failures; so far as failure to arrest is concerned, I don't think there has been, or is really, any discrimination as regards the
color of the perpetrators at all. There have been cases-there is one case right here now
in jail, of a white man killing anotherin 1865. It has never yet been disposed of. He is
in jail now. There have been cases where whites murdered whites and they were
apprehended, and in others they were not apprehended; and the same of blacks. My
impression is, from what I learn of the solicitor, that there are indictments now pending
in the circuit court against whites for injuries done to blacks.
Question. You spoke of the difficulties which lay in the way of justice in this State
and this county, particularly, those disguises, the secrecy in which those deeds were
perpetrated; is not one of the great obstacles in doing justice in these matters in this
State attributable to the fact of the inefficiency of the officers of the State and the
county?
Answer. I think it is.
Question. Do the officers of the State and county generally, or have they in the past,
commanded the confidence of the people?
Answver. In some instances they have, but in the majority of instances, I do not think
they have.