Taxation In South Carolina

In the June nuniber of Scribner's Edward King thus points out one of the causes of the terrible state of affaire which now exists in South Corolina : Many of the lowland negroea were firmly impressed, when shey were first called upou to use the ballot, that they were to gain some property by ït, and great numbers of theni still have au idea that they have been in soine neanner defrauded of what they were entitled to. - They have also been told by so many legislators of their own race that all the property, once their mustera', now properly belonged to them, that they have taken literally to believing it, in many cases, while in others, they consider the whole thing a muddie entirely beyoud their comprehension. This assertion that the negroes ought to take the planters' lands has been otten made by white politicians, who gained control of the negro at the time that the white natives refused to take any part in the elections, in the re-organization of the State. The whole theory of taxation in the Commonwealth as evolved by Nash and othecs of the few colored men of talent in the Legislature, is sumnied up in these worda, from the present Governor's last message : " The taxea fall chiefly where they belong - upon real estáte. The owner cannot 'afford to keep thousanda of acre idle and unproductive, nierely to gratify hia personal vanity, and because he inherited them from his father. Stern necessity, therefore, will compel him to cut up his ancestoral possessions into stnall farms, and sell them to those who can and will make them productive ; and thus the masaes of the people will become property holders." Swart Demos in the legislativo ohair, with artful rogues around him, remembers only that the tax was notraised from land, but upon the slaves prpvious to 1860 ; and when he thinka of it very likely his blood is hot, and he willingly applies a slashing tax to the land owners. " In the old days," he says, " your cotton acres worth hundreds of dollars, were only taxed four cents an acre, but on four hundred thousand such wretches, as I, you placed a tax of sixty cents per head, and made us work it out, thus getting nearly half a million of revenue. Now we will make you work out your tax, and we will wrest your lands away from you." And so bitterness ia needlessly provoked on both sides, and there is a veritable war of races. It is not taxation, nor even an increase of taxation, that the people of South Carolina object to ; but it is taxation without representation, and unjust tyrannical, arbitrary, overwhelming taxation, producing revenues which never get any further than the already bursting pockets of knaves and dupes !"