[Footnote 59:  Selected to publish the laws of the United States for the second session of the Forty-second Congress.]

WASHINGTON, March 28, 1872.

To the House of Representatives:

I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolution of the 19th instant, a report of the Secretary of State and the papers[60] which accompany the same.

U.S.  GRANT.

[Footnote 60:  Correspondence relative to the imprisonment by Spanish authorities of Dr. J.R.  Houard, a citizen of the United States, charged with complicity in the insurrection in Cuba.]

WASHINGTON, April 2, 1872.

To the Senate of the United States:

In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 18th of January last, relating to British light-house dues, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State and the documents which accompanied it.

U.S.  GRANT.

WASHINGTON, April 4, 1872.

To the House of Representatives:

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 14th of January last, I transmit herewith a report[61] of the Secretary of State.

U.S.  GRANT.

[Footnote 61:  Stating that the report of Richard D. Cutts on the marketable products of the sea was transmitted with the message of President Johnson of February 17, 1869.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 19, 1872.

To the House of Representatives:

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 25th of January last, I have the honor to submit the following, accompanied by the report of the Attorney-General, to whom the resolution was referred: 

Representations having been made to me that in certain portions of South Carolina a condition of lawlessness and terror existed, I requested the then Attorney-General (Akerman) to visit that State, and after personal examination to report to me the facts in relation to the subject.  On the 16th of October last he addressed me a communication from South Carolina, in which he stated that in the counties of Spartanburg, York, Chester, Union, Laurens, Newberry, Fairfield, Lancaster, and Chesterfield there were combinations for the purpose of preventing the free political action of citizens who were friendly to the Constitution and the Government of the United States, and of depriving emancipated classes of the equal protection of the laws.

“These combinations embrace at least two-thirds of the active white men of those counties, and have the sympathy and countenance of a majority of the one-third.  They are connected with similar combinations in other counties and States, and no doubt are part of a grand system of criminal associations pervading most of the Southern States.  The members are bound to obedience and secrecy by oaths which they are taught to regard as of higher obligation than the lawful oaths taken before civil magistrates.