For eighty years, my friends, the people of South Carolina have reposed securely in the faith that the fame of their ancestors was beyond reproach;—that they had no reason to dread the comparison of their deeds with those of any other people in this confederacy;—that their contributions to the national capital, of mind, moral and manhood, were of a sort to establish for them a perfect claim to the respect of all good men;—that they had given some, and not a few, of the greatest men in the country, to its several struggles for liberty & honorable renown;—that nothing, in brief, could take away, cloud or diminish, the glories of their Past, whatever might be thought of their performances in the Present. The Past, they were confident, was secure;—safe equally against the dull hoof of the ass, and the slimy trail of the reptile!

But the history, it would seem, must undergo revision. The old chronicles are to be ignored—the grateful traditions of three quarters of a century, are pronounced to be mere delusions; and there have been those to proclaim that the ancestors of whom we were so loud in boast, were in fact, false to their duties & their country;—recreant to their trusts—heedless of their honour,—faithless to their brethren,—traitors in the cabinet and cowards in the field!

These are substantially the allegations, made by a Senator in the Senate House; in sight and hearing of the assembled States;—while the Representatives from South Carolina, upon the same floor, assembled for grave deliberation upon the affairs of the whole country, are regaled with the cruel history, as it is poured forth with a malignant satisfaction, seemingly with no other purpose than to goad and mortify the natural pride and sensibility of a hated party! What other motive? South Carolina—her conduct in the Past, at least,—was in no respect the subject of present deliberation. Whether true or not, in substance, the assault was gratuitously wanton,—hostile to all the ends of council, and grossly subversive of all the parliamentary & social proprieties.

Was it true? If so, how happens it that South Carolina is identified with so many glorious passages in our history;—with so many of the brightest deeds;—with so many fields of battle;—with so many names of deathless men, which in the National records, are the recognized representatives of the noblest Page 208 →heroism—in fact, the received models of heroism whenever the song or story of the Revolution is the subject? How is it that she has acquired a spurious military and patriotic reputation, so distinguished in spite of the Chronicle? How is it that it has been left to the present day to make discoveries of her shortcomings in the past, of which the Past, itself, knew nothing? Is it, indeed, true, that Marion, and Sumter, and Moultrie and Pickens—the very greatest among the revolutionary partizans—were simulacra, myths—mere men of straw & vapor;—or did they stand alone, fighting & achieving victories single handed, and without any glorious array of followers? Is it true that Gadsden & Rutledge, Laurens and the Pinckneys,—to whom we owe some of the very first revolutionary mouvements, were common men;—worthless—mere makeweights in a struggle, to which they could accord neither soul nor intellect? Verily, if this be so, there was no Revolution;—the whole History is an invention.

But suppose these charges be untrue? Suppose the same malignity which made the assault upon South Carolina so wholly gratuitous, to have darkened the moral vision of the assailant;—obscured his perceptions;—made obtuse his faculty for discrimination between fact and falsehood;—making him ready to bear false witness in the case, and only too happy to do so? What then should be the atonement to that people from whose history he would tear away so many of their most brilliant records?—Do not mistake me, my friends: Do not suppose that I am about to engage in any review of the miserable politics of today. I know no subject so little calculated to provoke my consideration, as the small traffic of politics, in the hands of hireling partisans. It is an outrage upon sacred histories which I resent. It is the memories of a grand national epic, which I would protect from the assailant—the fame of great Sages and Statesmen—great Patriots and Warriors—that chronicle of Pride, upon which a whole people brood with satisfaction, & to which they refer their sons, when they would train them to honorable aims and a generous ambition. The blow is aimed, alike, at the Dead and the Living—the past, present & future;—robbing the one of laurels made sacred; consecrated forever by their tears and blood;—the other of all those monuments by which the future generations are to be taught becoming lessons & examples. The crime of the Incendiary who should penetrate your sanctuaries, and burn your archives, is nothing to this, since the memories of men may still cherish all the essential histories. But to tear away from the hearts of men their loving faith in the virtues of their sires—this is to slay the very hopes of a people, along with all their honest pride and most prolific impulses. This is to deprive them of all the most noble stimulants which goad a people to great performance. What must be the malice of a spirit which shall strive at such an object? What the desperate necessities of that party Hate which shall justify a policy so profane and Barbarous!

It will be permitted to a son of Carolina to assert her character;—to reassert her history;—and endeavour to maintain her argument; and every just and Page 209 →magnanimous nature, will not only accord to him this privilege, but will rejoice, with a becoming satisfaction, if he shall do so successfully. None but the base of soul can possibly feel pleasure in raking up, from foul & obscure sources, those proofs of lapse or shame, which shall go to detract from what is honorable in the history of any people. And such may somewhere be found in the progress of every people. There will be a momentary weakness of resolve;—a momentary sinking of the soul; among all nations; the wisest, the bravest, the best; in a long and trying conflict. Here and there, in all histories—even in yours—there shall be a failure among individual men, high in station. What nation is free from blot, cast upon its chronicles, by the feeble or the erring citizen? But, because of an Arnold, shall we decry a people? Because of an occasional lapse from virtue, or honorable courage, shall we insist upon the obscuration, or obliteration of annals otherwise glorious? What fool will insist upon such logic? Who but a malignant will shut his eyes against the noble performances of a race, while dilating with a base complacency, upon the occasional stain upon its scutcheon? In the case of States, such as ours, is it not the duty of the Philosophic Statesmen to take them in their entirety—the general course which they pursued—the virtues which preponderated—the great, and the good, & the valiant, whom they produced, & if need be to refer to a weakness, a fault, an error or a vice, to do so with sorrow, & not with exultation;—to do so, simply because of the requisitions of the truth, and not with the foul and malicious aim to make the failure tell against the unquestionable virtue. South Carolina asks only to be tried by the standards which are applied to other States. She asks no favour, but she demands justice. She requires, that, while you expose her faults, you do not suppress her virtues. Be sure of this, that if there be stains upon her shield, they are of virgin whiteness in comparison with those, which a diligent delver in the sewers of history, may discover, on many others, which now most loudly vaunt their purity!

It is alleged that the public services of South Carolina, during the Revolution were singularly disproportioned to her strength and ability. Let us look to this. In 1776 the population of South Carolina was estimated at 90,000, whites; an overestimate, in my opinion; 80,000 would be much nearer the mark. The negroes were probably 120,000. The settlements were scattered over a forest country, covering more than thirty thousand square miles. South Carolina furnished 35,000 soldiers to the war. Massachusetts had a population of 352,000; and her contributions to the war were 88,000 men. Now the population of Massachusetts was all comprised within an area of 10,000 square miles, including the settled portions of Maine. They could be easily brought together. The people of South Carolina, rating but 3 white persons to the square mile, could be assembled only with great delay & difficulty. The people of Massachusetts were homogeneous; all form a single stock. Those of South Carolina were mixed up of all European nations; and almost one half of them were born British subjects; a large proportion Page 210 →of whom had been less than ten years in the country. They were, accordingly, so many foreign enemies in her very bosom. The settlements in Carolina, in 1776, lay chiefly along the great water courses of the country: the colonists have planted along the seaboard, and have only begun to approach the mountains. They have possessed themselves of fertile spots along the Peedee, the Santee, the Edisto and Savannah; have dotted little tracts, here & there, in the rich vallies of the Broad & Saluda. Some of these settlements are purely Irish; others purely Scotch; others German; others French Huguenots; others Quakers from Pennsylvania. A wild waste of swamp & forest spreads between these several settlements, which scarcely communicate with each other, and possess no public roads connecting them. The French and Irish settlements readily subscribed to the Revolution. But with the Scotch, since ’45, the instincts were all loyal. Even Flora Macdonald, romantic rebel as she was, in Scotland, became, with all her family, and all the Highlanders in Georgia and the Carolinas, a dutiful subject of George the Third! The Germans were mostly with the crown; and when Drayton and others urged the argument of the colonies, they turned out their pocket sovereigns, and affectionately contemplating the Guelphic image, they said,—“But dere is King Tsherge on de geldt.” In other words are we not to render tribute unto Caesar? The Quakers were not disposed to fight at all, & hostile to war, were, of course, unfriendly to the Revolutionists. These are the facts, and, for these, I offer no apology. Nor need we now apologize for the Loyalists. The day has gone by when these people can be made properly the subjects of reproach. They had their arguments for Loyalty, and these were founded equally in reason and in natural sympathies. They were faithful to their old traditions;—faithful to the laws and the authorities;—faithful to every sentiment in which their childhood had been trained; and were, accordingly, incapable of seeing, with the eyes of the natives, the same degree of provocation or wrong which they felt, or the propriety of that revolution which they held to be the proper remedy. Removed as we are from that period of passion and excitement, we have no quarrel now with the Loyalists. But with these facts before you, and a thousand such, which time does not suffer me to state, is it not a wonder that South Carolina should take part in the revolution at all; particularly as she had no such causes of complaint as drove the Eastern colonies into rebellion. Hardly one of the operating oppressions which prompted New England to resistance, affected her interests. She was purely agricultural. She did not employ machinery; was no competitor with British manufacture; sent no ships to sea in rivalry with British commerce. She lost no vessels by forfeiture. The King’s arrow, on her forest trees, in the boundlessness of her wild domain, abridged no man’s plenty. Great Britain furnished her a sufficient market; readily took & consumed all her raw productions, and yielded her manufactures at prices of which we had no reason to complain. When the Pirate infested our shores, he was driven off by British men of war. When assailed, on Page 211 →coast or frontier, by French, or Spaniard, or red men, the fleets and armies of Britain came to our succour. Carolina, in brief, was one of the pet provinces of Britain; and none of those selfish rivalries of trade, which, from a very early period, began to embitter the intercourse between old & New England, ever arose to disturb the pleasant intercourse which existed between the Province & the Mother Country. The Revolution found all the young men of wealth and family, pursuing their studies in British Universities. Would it have been wonderful,—or a matter of reproach, if South Carolina, under these circumstances had refused all part in the conflict?—wonderful, if there had been many who should see no good cause for the conflict; wonderful, if all of British birth, should ally themselves with the Royal, rather than the Republican cause? Let me tell you now who did so,—and who did not. The Scotch settlements every where: a large proportion of the Germans; for was not George the 3d. one of their own Princes? The great majority of merchants, most of whom were of British birth & opinion! What remained to the Republicans? The native agricultural population; the native mechanics; the native lawyers and professions, mostly; the people of Huguenot stock; and the Scots-Irish colonists, with few exceptions. These were the parties, which, in South Carolina, asserting abstract principles, rather than present necessities, raised the banner of Revolution in sympathy with Massachusetts—raised it among the first—nay, the very first, and sent their succours to Massachusetts, from the first moment when she was stricken by the Enemy. Yet the first shaft at South Carolina comes from the quiver of Massachusetts. We are among the first to adopt her quarrel, and to arm in her defence; we send her money, wines and provisions—rice and maize, arms and ammunition—Hundreds of thousands in value—and, in her gratitude—she sends us—but let me say nothing of this. Look to the History and you will see that no colony of this confederacy, ever showed itself more prompt—very few half so prompt,—in sharing the fortunes of Massachusetts, when that colony stood in danger, and when the sympathies of the most feeble, were precious to her as the breath of life! Yes, in that day, Massachusetts could send a Special Ambassador to Carolina, one of her chief men, imploring sympathy and succour. And he obtained it; yet even then there was one far seeing Carolinian who said to him—“I foresee that we shall only exchange one tyranny for another, New England’s tyranny for that of Old England; & I confess, for one, I prefer to submit to the usurpations of the one rather than of the other!” How prophetic was this man’s language, let the history of today declare.—Well, the South Carolinians joined with Massachusetts. In spite of all the odds against them—the Scotch, English, German & Redmen—all subsidized by the crown, and forming nearly one half of her population—the patriots of South Carolina threw themselves into the breach, among the first with Massachusetts! They knew the dangers! They did not stop to count the odds! It was in spite of the open and secret opposition of most of these hostile factions—in spite Page 212 →of that lack of homogeneity which is so essential to an insurrectionary movement; in spite of the lack of all that mean but potential impulse, from the argumentum ad crumenam, which is so all-effective with a mixed multitude,—that South Carolina engaged in the struggle. I contend that purer patriots were never found—that hands cleaner of self and of offence—freer from the reproach of base and selfish motive,—never grasped the weapons of war—never more bravely, or faithfully carried Life, property & sacred honour, as their pledges into the field, or for more generous & national purposes. I deny that you have any right to inquire into her mere numbers, when called upon to acknowledge her achievements; and when these achievements neutralize her deficiency of numbers, they enhance the glory of each several deed! I insist, that, as the aims and energies of her native population, gave direction to the politics and action of the State, & their courage and conduct finally fixed it in this direction, they are the only true representatives of the State;—which is not to be estimated by the conduct of those who opposed the revolution, and fought stubbornly against it, but by those who began it, clung to it through all odds of fortune, and maintained the conflict to its triumphant close! I contend that it is quite unnecessary, in claiming for South Carolina a position as eminent for patriotism & valour as any other State, to show a perfect unanimity among her citizens. It is enough to show that the native population, mostly, sustained by the French and Irish settlers, and opposed chiefly by the Scotch, German, English and Quaker settlements, did assert for her the noblest position from the beginning; did obtain ascendancy from the beginning; were among the first at the beginning, & persevered in it to the end; and this through a bloody civil war to which no other state was subjected; contending against odds the most unequal; fighting equally an enemy within & an enemy without; fighting for her Sister States, until exhausted; almost entirely deserted by her Sister States; never receiving any assistance, whatsoever, from her States North of the Hudson; but feebly and slowly succoured by the States South of it; and finally, with the most moderate help from their arms, coming out of the conflict triumphantly, though bleeding at every pore.

This is the true history, in the briefest possible summary. The records will prove it true in every syllable. The claims which Carolina asserts to a proper share in the work of the Revolution may be slurred over by ingenious misrepresentation, but she cannot be defrauded of them. They are to be estimated by the difficulties with which she had to contend; by the deficiency of her numbers; by the poverty of her resources; by the rancour and strength of her enemies; by the purity of her purposes; by the spirit & wisdom of the favorite sons who swayed her councils and fought her battles; & by the frequency and bloody severity of her fields of fight. Her claims are based upon the performances of those who strove in her behalf, and not upon the hostility of those who strove against her. It is not to be permitted that the former should be disparaged, by any count of Page 213 →the numbers of the latter. We cannot allow that her fame is to be smutched, because there were many, within her limits, with whom her champions were hourly doing battle. In fact, so far from disparaging her claims, this serves to make them brighter and more glorious. Her fame is the greater, in degree with the numbers who were thus, within her own bowels, laboring at her destruction. The more you increase the numbers of the foreign Loyalists in her domain, the more you heighten the merits of those who braved them from the first, nor shrunk beneath the conflict, when these were openly arrayed beneath the banner of Britain and sustained by British & Hessian Legionaires. I regard it, indeed, as the strangest sort of logic, fit only for a rascal reasoner, to be told,—as we have been told—by some of the blindly venomous maligners of Carolina, that, when, on the 21st of April 1775, Pinckney, Laurens, Lynch, Huger, Bull, Drayton, Gadsden & others, seized on the British forts & arsenals, and possessed themselves of all their arms and munitions, there were certain Scotch and English Loyalists in Charleston, who were ready to cut the throats of all these patriots! That there were hostile foreigners in the city, cannot be suffered to interpose between the State, as a whole, acting through the representatives of the native stock, and which perseveres, and succeeds, in spite of them. So, it is not to be permitted, when we show that these same Patriots captured an English cruiser, & sent off the gunpowder to Boston, which enables Washington to continue the leaguer of that city, that some mousing caviller should start up & cry aloud—“Yes, indeed; but, at that very time, you had certain foreigners in your city, dealing in flour & molasses, who would rather have seen that powder employed in blowing Washington sky high with all his rebels.”—Yet such is the absurd logic by which her enemies would cancel the public debt to the patriotism of South Carolina.

It is quite enough for us to show, that, whatever the number of our Loyalists, there was a sufficient cohort of true republicans to decide the course, & determine the action of the State! And their merit is the greater, when this impulse is given to the Body Politic, so as to compel it in the right direction, by only a certain portion of its people; and in spite, as well of the active opposition, as of the passive resistance of mere masses among the rest. It is, in fact, the peculiar boast of Carolina, that, with her population almost equally divided, she was yet able to achieve so much;—to send into the field so large a proportion of the noblest and ablest Captains; & into the national councils so many of the boldest politicians & the wisest Statesmen. Her merit consists in being able, while contending with a formidable home faction, to make contributions of strength, wisdom, patriotism & valour, to the Common Cause, which no other State in the Union has ever exceeded, tho’ placed under circumstances far more advantageous!

Let us now see what are the proofs of her imbecility?—which, if true, might well be excused, from the facts already stated in her condition. As far back as 1765 the first steps towards a continental union were taken in South Carolina, Page 214 →and before the measure had been agreed upon by any colony south of New England. She was the first of the Colonies to form an Independent Constitution, in March 1776, and prior to the recommendation of Congress to that effect. And she had thrown off the Royal Government from 6th. July 1774—and on that day had passed a unanimous vote to sustain Massachusetts in the vindication of her rights. No tardiness here—no waiting on braver & bigger colonies to take the lead! In January 1775, we find the first Revolutionary Provincial Congress in Session, preparing for the next republican act;—a constitution, which was passed, as I have said, in March of the following year. The same convention stamped money—established a court of admirality for the condemnation of British vessels; issued Letters of Marque & reprisal; &, in Sept. of the same year, seized the royal forts, turned their guns against the royal cruisers, & drove them from the Harbour of Charleston. Not slow, I think, these proceedings;—more—at Charleston the tea was seized; a second shipment, at Charleston & at Georgetown, was thrown into the sea; & by citizens who did not think proper to paint or disguise themselves for the occasion. Surely, there was no imbecility here—no lack of will, resolution, and utter fearlessness, confronting peril! South Carolina did not stop here. She raised four regular regiments, all her own. She put her militia in training. She armed & manned her own vessels for war; and, in three weeks after the battle of Lexington her little army was ready to take the field. And all this was done out of her own treasury. So far, no colony had shown more zeal, promptness and readiness; few half so much. Enough that her conduct provoked the especial hostility of the Crown. Her courage was shortly to be put to the final test. A powerful fleet and army appeared upon her coasts. Simultaneously with this, the Loyalist British leaders upon the frontier, themselves habited and painted like the Red men, brought down a multitude of the savage warriors along her borders, and began the work of massacre upon the exposed settlements. The assault, at the same moment, was made at both extremities of the State. The history, by this time, ought to be well known. The British fleet was beaten off from the harbour of Charleston, with terrible slaughter, by Moultrie, at the head of a force wholly of Carolinians. This was in June 1776; and the first battle after that of Bunker Hill. It was one of the best fought battles of the Revolution; and the first occasion which ever witnessed the defeat of a British fleet, and by a native militia, few of whom had ever before seen the smokes of an enemy’s fire; with a fortress only half finished; with inferior metal, and not half the necessary supply of gunpowder. At the same moment, the Loyalists and their savage allies were chastised upon the frontiers; &, for the time, humbled into submission, & again by the native militia of the colony.—These were prodigious exertions for so feeble a State as South Carolina. They exhausted her resources. They loaded her with debt. Her spirit, always greater than her strength, led to one unfortunate result. It prompted friends & foes equally to overrate her ability to defend herself. To this Page 215 →it was due that, when her final peril came, she received too little succour from her Sister States of the South,—none, whatever, from those of the North; while her enemies, warned by previous experience, descended upon her, when they next appeared, with a force so overwhelming, as almost to render all resistance hopeless.

South Carolina was next required to succour Georgia, then the feeblest of all the Confederacy. She did so: she invaded Florida, in an ill advised and badly managed expedition; and her regiments were reduced, by want, exposure & starvation, to mere skeletons. Georgia had but one regular regiment, which, overcome in various combats, at length perished in the British Prison Ships. Hundreds of the Carolinians shared the same fate! Georgia was overrun; Savannah captured; &, in a vain effort to defend Savannah & Georgia, the regiments of Carolina suffered still farther diminution. She had to support both provinces, and keep off the invader with such forces as she, herself, almost single handed, could muster. Congress did nothing, or next to nothing! Arms, ammunitions, provisions; all were obtained from South Carolina.—This brings us to the close of 1778. But, up to this period, there was no abatement, either of heart or hope, among the Carolinians. A flag sent into the Port of Charleston by the British Commissioners, with threats and overtures, was answered with defiance; & the flag vessel driven from the harbour! Surely, no lack still, of a firm confidence, & a stern determination to bide the conflict! But in 1779 Georgia was overrun, Savannah in possession of the enemy, the British were encouraged to new enterprises. Savannah constituted a good base of operations, whence they could readily strike at South Carolina. The regular forces of the Carolinas, four thousand men, were under the command of Lincoln. He had marched with them into the interior of Georgia; on a most injudicious expedition, the objects of which were totally unworthy of the interests periled & the sacrifices made. He left 1200 militia men with Moultrie, to watch the enemy, on the banks of the Savannah. Prevost, the British General, a dashing Partisan officer, seized promptly the opportunity, thus afforded him, for attempting a coup de main on Charleston. His route, baiting the militia force under Moultrie, was through an almost uninhabited country of swamps & marshes. In all this region, there were not five hundred people. Beaufort, Jacksonborough, Dorchester, were mere villages of 20 or 30 families. The 1200 militia men of Moultrie, could offer no serious obstacle to the march of 4,000 British regulars, with an auxiliary force of Loyalists & red men, of nearly a 1000 more. Charleston, itself, contained only 1200 dwelling houses of all sizes, implying a white population of 7000 souls—a number, which, at the uttermost, could yield only 1500 fighting men. Of these there was, questionless, a large body of Loyalists; including, as I have said, the Scotch, English, German, Quaker, & trading population, generally. By these the British were supplied, at every period of assault, with secret intelligence. As one of the British officers said to Moultrie, Page 216 →after the final capture of the city—“You made a gallant defence, Sir, but had many traitors among you!” No doubt!—Our argument, claiming the highest credit for the defence, is founded somewhat upon this very fact, that there were so many hostile elements, in the very heart of State & city, against whom the Patriots had to strive, while fighting the foe without.—But Prevost is on his march. Moultrie with his Militia skirmishes with his advance; but must retreat before him if he would save the city. He sees the game of Prevost. He feels the danger of Charleston. The British General, meanwhile, lets loose all his terrors—his redmen & tories;—to ravage the country as he advances. With the torch & tomahawk, in either hand, you need not be told what sort of tragedies are enacted or to be feared in this progress. There the Church of God flames; there the House of Man! You hear the crash of falling timbers; the shrieks of women, flying for shelter to swamp and forest. Old men are brained upon the ancestral hearth; babes are spitted upon the bayonet. The militia men know the danger, and scatter for their homes, maddened with their fears for the helpless and beloved ones; and when Moultrie reaches the city his force of 1200 is reduced to half the number. Meanwhile, the regulars of Prevost steadily march on. What of the city? When Prevost began his march, its fortifications did not exist. But, when he reaches the precinct, lines and an abbatis have been carried across the neck from the Cooper to the Ashley. The militia of the vicinity have come in to its defence. Moultrie arrives;—Rutledge with 600 militia from the interior; & Harris with 250 Continentals. They have made forced marches to reach the place in season, & the next day the British appear. A sharp action follows with the Legion cavalry of Pulaski, and a body of Militiamen, in which our people are severely handled. That night the garrison lay upon their arms. The next day, a message was sent to the enemy asking upon what terms he would grant a capitulation. And here occurs one of those transactions which have been supposed to reflect upon the patriotism of Carolina, or her courage. It is one of those occasions, which, upon a partial statement of facts, without the proper weighing of the probabilities, or evidence, have been relied on to sanction the severest judgments. What are the facts? The Governor and his Privy Council open negotiations with the enemy, asking to know upon what terms the city may capitulate. For the details of this affair, there are really but two authorities, Ramsay & Moultrie, both Carolina historians. Both were present. Ramsay was even then the recognized Historian, busy in the accumulation of materials. He was experienced in affairs; circumspect, thoughtful, calm; a close observer; a correct thinker. Moultrie was brave & honest; in whom, as a man and soldier, the people had every confidence. It is his account which occasions the reproach. He describes the proposal to negotiate as seriously entertained, by a portion of the Council at all events; while Ramsay distinctly tells us that the object was simply to gain time, until Lincoln, with his regulars could reach the city, when he might fall upon the rear of the enemy. To prevent the Page 217 →assault, yet delay the British, so as to have them between two fires, was the object. Before the negotiations are opened, Rutledge sounds Moultrie, as the military man, upon the prospects of the defence. He describes the relative strength of the two forces. The British are reported to be 6 or 8000. Rutledge depicts the dangers from such a force, most of them Regulars, sustained by an auxiliary body of tories and red men; points to the weakness of the lines; the inferiority of numbers in the garrison, and makes out the worst case under the circumstances. Moultrie, in reply, thinks the place defensible; thinks the British numbers greatly exaggerated, & shows that ours have been underrated. Rutledge convenes the Council, and the result is the message to the British General. Prevost answers vaguely, that he will grant protection. Protection implies neutrality. To those who decline to take protection, he says, they shall be received as prisoners of war; their fate decided by that of the rest of the colonies. The reply to this rejects the proposal as dishonorable, & suggests a conference between a single military man on each side. At this conference, the American officer was counselled to propose neutrality on the part of the State for the rest of the war; her fate to be decided finally by the terms of peace between the United States & Great Britain. This, you perceive, was a far more liberal concession to the enemy, than he had himself prescribed, and which had been denounced, by the Council, but the day before, as dishonorable to the garrison. But Prevost rejects this offer, and requires that the garrison shall submit as prisoners of war. This requisition is at once rejected, and the Carolinians stand to their arms. But the British seek no farther to test their resolution. The conference is scarcely closed, before their army disappears under cover of the night. This is the substantial history, gleaned from the actual correspondence. Moultrie, however, after a lapse of 20 years, makes a narrative of his own, from memory, in which he undertakes to give the details of one or more dialogues, in which he reports one of the members of the Council as shedding tears at the idea of Surrendering, and all of them as looking grave. He speaks of certain things as having been said, but he does not recollect by whom, and, briefly, has indulged in the most dangerous experiment upon memory which a witness could ever undertake. He does not tell us that Rutledge was frightened, as some of the Northern writers, have told you. He describes him as grave & earnest, and as giving him an exaggerated estimate of the enemy’s strength, and an inadequate representation of our own, according to reports which have reached the city, and which might be true or not. But all this amounts to little,—to no more than this: that the Governor & His Privy Council, were very grave and greatly troubled, as well they might be; that they naturally consulted the chief military man of the place, upon the resources which he could bring to bear in the defence; that, whether they felt this to be the fact or not, they, as naturally, presented to his contemplation the worst aspects of the case. This would be the very practice of the Lawyer & the Politician searching his own witnesses. This was the very practice of John Page 218 →Rutledge. But Moultrie, a plain, rough, direct soldier, with no artifice, no strategies, can conceive of none but the single matter in hand. He was for fighting, as the shortest & best finish for a long argument, and if he reasoned upon the subject at all it was probably in such fashion as this. “Well, they are four or five thousand; we are three thousand. But we have the Lines. They will try to storm; but we shall drub them; we shall surely drub them! At all events, we shall try. Let them storm, and be _______ drubbed!” But John Rutledge wished to avert this very danger of a Storm. He too thought it possible that the British might be drubbed; but he preferred to convert the possible into the certain. He aimed at more. The capture of Prevost. We must negotiate. Hold out all sorts of lures to the enemy, so as to prevent the assault, until Lincoln comes in upon his back. He is near at hand. But Rutledge was not to allow this policy to be seen, either by the soldiery or the citizens; nay, the very members of his own Council, all of them, are not to know that these negotiations contemplate nothing but a ruse de guerre, to gain time. It will not do to spread that abroad. That will be to defeat the object, to precipitate the assault, and baffle the occult purpose of the negotiations. And, according to Moultrie’s own showing, certain members of the Council came to him & whispered encouragement in his ears. They will stand by him to the last; and the militia said the same thing, and the people! They had got wind of these negotiations, perhaps ostentatiously made public; &, taking for granted what was on the face of them, had become angry; and, we are told, would have taken the Council by the throats, had time been allowed them. And all this, without dreaming that it was by this very policy of seeming to fear, and entreating negotiation, that the city was saved at last. For, how can you suppose that Prevost, at the head of 4000 regulars, and a large auxiliary force, would reject the gift of State and city, on the terms suggested, if he had not, at the last moment, become aware that he had been the victim of a delusion; that he would abandon the field, and the prey upon which he had only to close his fingers, the moment after the very conference, in which the surrender had been proffered to his arms. This has been the puzzle with critics & Historians—Lee & others—who never suffered themselves to look into the situation of Rutledge & his Council, and who have wondered, & blundered, over the wonderful blundering of Prevost, who could reject such a liberal offer. They do not note the meaning of the final refusal of the British General, to treat with the Council at all; and never seem to have conjectured that, having detected the ruse de guerre, in consequence of the receipt of an intercepted letter, Prevost had become satisfied that the offer was not made in good faith; was only a sham; and that, if it delayed him an hour longer, it would involve the safety of his whole army. He could now see the secret of this policy. To delay him where he was, was to enclose him between two fires, those of the garrison in front, and of Lincoln & his Continentals in the rear. The negotiation succeeded in its object. Time was gained. Prevost had Page 219 →dilly-dallied with fortune just one day too long. Would he have lingered a moment, forbearing the assault, had it not been for the negotiations; and would he have listened to any negotiations, if they had not held out some extraordinary temptations? What says General Lee on this subject. Lee has been referred to as one of the authorities in this matter; though, as regards the mere facts, he is no authority at all; not being within 700 miles of the scene of action, and not coming into the State for a long time after. He not only speaks of Rutledge “as an accomplished gentleman, a profound Statesman, a captivating orator, decisive in his measures, & inflexibly firm;” but he ascribes the safety of the city to these very negotiations. He says—“the whole day was spent, intentionally on the part of the besieged, & erroneously on the part of the Beseiger, in the adjustment of terms. Thus 12 more precious hours were gained.” He mentions the proposal of neutrality, and forgetting what he has himself just said about the negotiating policy of Rutledge, wonders that Prevost should have refused it. And, in the very next chapter, he tells us, that, when in turn, Prevost was besieged by the French & Americans in Savannah, “he recollected the late transactions before Charleston, determined to imitate the example furnished by his Enemy on that occasion; and so answered as to protract negotiations, gaining time, by suggesting his own willingness to surrender, and getting so many hours for the necessary adjustment of terms.” And this is all the secret, which could prove no puzzle, either for Philosophical Historian or the good military critic. Did Moultrie’s force save the city? Not a bit of it. His army of 3000 raw militia men, could not have covered one fourth of the line of battery which he had to defend. What saved it then? The protracted negotiations, which gave time to Lincoln with his force of four thousand Continentals, made up of the Lines of the 2 Carolinas, and a body of Virginians, the rapid approach of whom, as ascertained by an intercepted letter of Lincoln, startled Prevost, in the midst of the conference, with apprehensions for his own safety; and, even as he read, he dispatched his Lieutenants to set the troops in marching order; and as soon as night had set in, he recrossed the Ashley, and made forced marches down to the coast, where he could be sure of cover from his shipping. Could he have gained the city, on any terms, at that very hour, would he have fled from it? Not so! He would have pressed in—taken any terms—manned the Lines against Lincoln, and achieved the very object for which he came. He was baffled by the Statesman Rutledge, who held out to his fancy the most promising of lures, and gradually drew it back from the eyes which it had sufficiently deluded. The military men were not suffered to know the secret object of the game. Nay, all the members of the Council, we have reason to believe, were not suffered to know. There are, in all councils, a certain number of fat and sleek and worthy men; who are honest without being sagacious; who love to talk, and will blab;—leaky vessels whom you do not condemn, but to whom you never entrust any liquid philosophies. To such as these, the Page 220 →occult virtue that lies at the basis of a mere fact, is never discoverable; and you charitably forbear vexing them with its burdens. But you are all sufficiently politicians to understand the great difference which exists between the puppet on the stage, & the wire puller behind the scenes. And you can readily conceive that our Council had certain among its members who could simply hold out their irons & wink. So, when Moultrie tells you, that one of the Parties wept, at the thought that the city must be surrendered, and that some other unknown Councilman said—“Yes”—to the question of surrender; there was no more profound meaning in it than in that Burleigh nod, which is so significant in the school of doubtful noddles. That Moultrie himself, a plain old soldier, should be for fighting right away; & that the fiery young Laurens should chafe at all negotiation, was simply a thing of course, in keeping with the character of both. But you find that there were certain of these Council men who whispered their secret encouragements in the ears of Moultrie; while the fierce old Patriot, Gadsden, one of the firmest, and the earliest of the champions of American liberty, would seize the stout old soldier by the wrist, and giving him a squeeze such as a blacksmith’s vice fastens upon a nail head, would growl in his ears, “Hold on!—We are with you to the death, Bill Moultrie!”—With all the reserves and cautions of the Council, all their open deliberations did leak out.—What would have been the result, in a community full of loyalists, if the secret objects of the Council had been made known? Would not Prevost have been instantly taught the game which was played upon him? Would not the assault have followed the discovery. And what might have been the consequences? We know that Moultrie would have fought. He was well seconded. Marion was with him; and Laurens; and there were 3000 city & country militia who were in harness, and full of enthusiasm. But we also know that the lines were without strength; the citizens badly armed; too few for the extent of their fortifications; and the enemy, one third more numerous, and a well-drilled body, well armed, of British regulars!

We are not, my friends, to deal with historical reputations in the loose & reckless manner of the newspaper press: not to adopt, on partial statements, of an imperfect memory, every suggestion which may be construed into an import which will tell against the reputation of great men. The vulgar world is always eager to adopt a faith which will bring down greatness to a vulgar level. We are especially to regard the probabilities, which belong to character, whether of an individual or of a people, when called upon to decide upon isolated facts, which seem to tell against either. In the case of John Rutledge, the antecedents, & the subsequents, are equally adverse to the supposition that he behaved on this occasion with any lack of nerve or patriotism. He had been among the most impassioned advocates of the Revolution. When the battle of Fort Moultrie was to be fought, and Lee, the Continental General, proposed to abandon it, Rutledge said to Moultrie, “I will sooner cut off my right hand, than write such an order.” Page 221 →When, afterwards, Charleston fell into the hands of the Enemy, and the State was overrun; the people so well knew him,—so perfectly confided in him, that they made him their Dictator, requiring him, in the language of the ancient Roman, to see that the Republic should sustain no harm. And all the testimonies, concur in reporting him, throughout the war, as one of the most faithful of patriots; one of the most steadfast of men. And what shall we say of the contradiction, involved in the fact, that it was but a few hours before, that leading 600 men from Orangeburg, Rutledge, by forced marches had thrown himself into the city. Did he bring them to the city, only to surrender it & them to the enemy? He knew of Prevost’s march upon Charleston—& had reason to believe from the reports, that his forces were far more numerous than they were proved to be after he reached the city. Why then should he so suddenly resolve to abandon the very object for which he came—to bring his 600 militia to the garrison, only that they might be lost to the country. The whole notion is an absurdity, to be misconceived only by those who were unable to follow out the subtle policy which governed the Statesman. It is very certain that his contemporaries never beheld the transaction which I have just discussed, in the same light with the people of today. Moultrie, himself, though no doubt greatly puzzled by the affair; never fancied that he was giving countenance to the notion that Rutledge was an imbecile. The very correspondence, by the way, which he publishes in this very connection, shows that he must greatly have misconceived the true purposes of Rutledge. There, but a little month before, we find Rutledge writing to himself, in this language—“Lt. Col. Prevost’s proposition of a temporary neutrality, for a part of Georgia, is really too absurd and ridiculous to require a moment’s consideration. It scarce merits any answer.”—And yet, we are told, in a month after, that he seriously meditated this very absurd arrangement for South Carolina. The fact is almost patent, that, aware of this, as Prevost’s own favorite proposition, Rutledge seized upon it, as the one lure, over all others, best calculated to beguile & to blind the British General, and secure the desirable respite for the city, of 24 hours from assault. All attempts now, to disturb a reputation, which, in his own time, was beyond reproach, are only discreditable to the assailant. In some of your newspapers, there have been recent labours of this sort, in which sundry authorities have been quoted, who are no authorities at all. Col. Harry Lee, for example, who, I have already told you, was not in S. C. till long after, gathers his details from Moultrie, and himself testifies to the wonderful vigour, firmness, power & patriotism of Rutledge, whom he knew during all the closing scenes of the war. Judge Johnson has also been summoned to the stand as a witness, but he was hardly born at the time, and he too relies upon Moultrie. Dr. Ramsay, I find, quoted partially, in a garbled extract, by one of our assailants, in support of Moultrie; but, curiously enough, he suppresses the significant words of Ramsay, who is the best authority, and who distinctly tells us that the sole object of the Page 222 →negotiations was to gain time. Ramsay was present during the affair, was intimate with the chief actors, conferred with them all upon the subject of his history, and had its secret clues, as well as obvious details, in his hands, in most of the cases which came under his own observation. Why should his positive evidence be garbled or ignored? Of Professor Bowen, and Mr. Flanders, who have written upon the subject, it is enough to say that they are commentators, not witnesses. As authorities, they are wholly valueless; and their very enumeration proves only an inveterate desire to establish a point, at all hazards, which, even if true, could serve no other purposes than those of an unpatriotic malignity. To study this case thoroughly, you are to have in regard a variety of relevant topics, which are essential to that grouping of fragmentary facts, into perfect truth, which is the great duty of the Historian. It is essential, for example, that you should know that the civil & military powers, were rarely in harmony in South Carolina, until Rutledge assumed the Dictatorship. They were rarely in harmony in any of the States. Moultrie had, long before this time, come into collision with the civilian; there had been almost an open rupture upon the question of separate jurisdiction. Some of his letters are extant, asserting his dignity against what he deemed the usurpations of Council. I have seen their replies, penned, like his, with some asperity. Nay, more there was a quasi quarrel between the parties on this very score, at the very moment when Prevost was thundering at the gates. I feel very sure that, while greatly honoured, as a soldier and a man, Moultrie was not often referred to as a councillor, save on military affairs. On this occasion, I have no doubt that all his misconceptions arose from the fact that he was only in part admitted to a knowledge of the proceedings in Council. The civilians sought him only for his military opinion, and took special care, perhaps, to let him understand, all the while, that the sword must always yield precedence modestly to the gown. Though something of a phlegmatic, he was the person to resent such treatment. He undervalued civilians in war; they did not seek him in Council. Here you have a solution of some of those difficulties which have puzzled the historians; very few of whom, in our country, know any thing of military affairs. We are not in possession of a single history, of any one of the States, in which a philosophic mind has weighed the import of mere facts in the narrative. None of them has done more than narrate the facts as they appear upon the surface. The clues to action, the motives to plan & purpose, have been unconsidered by any. What we especially need now, is such an Historian as will be able to enter into the analysis of character, & general probability, and to trace the action up to its original motive. Let me add that there are probably not more than half a dozen persons, at this time, in all the States, who, from a knowledge of details, or from the capacity to analyse them, are capable of an adequate judgment on this subject of our Revolution. Were they permitted to speak out fully—were not the day gone by for the reopening of the case,—their revelations would be absolutely Page 223 →terrible in certain quarters. If my view of the case, in the present instance, be correct, what a crime are we committing against character; against the simple truths of history; when we arraign the political philosopher, who actually achieves the success, upon the evidence of the soldier, honest though he be, who is yet suffered to behold nothing but the surface. It is my opinion, drawn from what I hold to be the best evidence—and from what is probable from the consistent performances of the man—that, so far from Rutledge failing of courage or conduct, we owe it to his subtle policy, that Charleston was saved from storm & sack. The strength of the city itself could scarce have saved it; Lincoln could not have appeared in season to do so. But for the negotiations which baffled the enemy for a day and night, we should have had the attack. We may calculate on the probabilities as we will. The assailants might have been baffled. But what are the probabilities? Four thousand British regulars, with an auxiliary force of a 1000 more, loyalists & Indians, against an untrained, badly armed militia of 3000, required to defend more than a mile front of field lines. I can only say that, in no part of America did the encounter of any forces, similarly disproportioned, result in any thing but defeat to the weaker party! It is enough to add, here, that, subsequently, when Lincoln faced the same enemy at Stono, the hardest fighting was done, and to the defeat of the British, by native Carolinians. But, even if Rutledge failed on this occasion, and thus forfeited his reputation in the past,—which I do not admit—how does this affect the reputation of South Carolina? One of her Counsellors faltered you will say; but the rest were firm. The people were firm—the soldiers firm. If Moultrie & his followers saved the city, they were all native Carolinians. The Gadsdens & Laurenses, who bade him stand firm, & they would breast the shock with him;—the merchant, Edwards, who wept bitter tears at the bare idea of surrender—the enraged soldiery & people who swore fierce vengeance equally against the enemy without, & the Council within—these were all native Carolinians. What can be made of these facts against the fame & honour of the State?

Well,—we next find these same Charleston Militia led against the British Lines at Savannah, under the joint lead of Lincoln & d’Estaign. The combined armies were defeated with great slaughter, and the only show of success which they could exhibit was at the hands of Carolinians, they alone having won the enemy’s ramparts, and planting their flag upon the walls. But, says one of our assailants, “Less than a year after Prevost’s attempt—the people of Charleston were very ready to surrender to a British army.” Another writes—“South Carolina with a Northern army to assist her, could not or would not even arm for the defence of her own capital.” Let me say, in limine, to correct a very common error of these purblind politicians, that no troops, from New England, ever came to the succour of South Carolina. A regiment of Pennsylvanians came at the close of the war, when the fighting was all over. The Southern armies were wholly Page 224 →made up from the States of Virginia & Maryland, the two Carolinas & Georgia, with a small contingent from Delaware. The South sent a hundred men East of the Hudson, during the revolution, for every one that ever came South of it, except at the single siege of York. Even South Carolina, after the fall of Charleston, sent one thousand of her sons, to the Northern army, which they joined at Philadelphia, where they were reviewed by Arnold. And the Regiments of Virginia, Maryland & North Carolina, were among the constituents of the army under Washington, which was almost wholly employed at the North. Enough on this head. Let us now see what is meant when it is said that the Carolinians would not defend their chief city, and were quite ready to yield it to the enemy! It so happens that Charleston is the only city, which, in the Revolution, was defended by the Americans at all! Boston, New York, Philadelphia, all more populous & powerful, were yielded quietly to the enemy, without striking a blow; while Charleston was defended for six weeks, by five thousand men, against 12000 British regulars, supported by a powerful fleet; nor was she conquered at last by arms! She succumbed, to famine, only; though her batteries, and one half of her houses were in ruins! And this defence was made wholly by the troops of the two Carolinas & Virginia, behind mere field works which the French engineers pronounced untenable from the beginning! What would people have? If Charleston was badly defended, or not defended, what shall we say of those bigger, braver cities, who never stood siege a moment; never went into battery; never scaled a gun; never dedicated themselves, for a day even, to the patriotic diet, upon rats, frogs, and horse flesh, and found them luxuries! I do not reproach these cities. It was a wise policy of Washington, not to defend them, but to economize his army in the open field. This should have been the policy of South Carolina. They did defend their chief city & lost it, with all their garrison. Of the 5000 prisoners who fell into the hands of the enemy on this occasion, more than 3000 were South Carolinians. Now, count for yourselves. How many thousands more will this little State, of less than 3 persons to the square mile, be prepared, after all these contests & losses, to send into new fields of combat? Her own coast and border defence,—the defence of Georgia,—the invasion of Florida, and the Cherokees, have cost her thousands, and she is covered with debt as with a garment! Thousands, as we have said, of her population, are foreigners; British subjects; Loyalists, born & bred; and less than ten years in the country; and against all of these she has to contend! She is without arms and ammunition; without money; her regular troops are all prisoners of war; her one Brigadier, Moultrie, is a prisoner; her militia force,—what remains of it,—is scattered over a vast forest country, and without a leader! And Congress, it is now reported, has abandoned her; about to make peace, sacrificing her & Georgia, to the enemy, under the rule of uti possidetis. She has various small bodies of militia in the field; but they act without concert; and simply maintain watch over isolated settlements, to protect Page 225 →them from the local loyalists; from the red men of the borders; from the refugees of other States! Meanwhile, the conquering enemy, has sent his columns into the interior, overawing all the settlements; while his light detachments sweep the country dispersing the small squadrons which would still keep themselves embodied. And there is no help from abroad. No help from Congress—neither men, nor money,—not even the weapons of war! The Virginians & North Carolinians, when, hitherto they have been sent to help us, have come mostly without arms, without clothing, and have been furnished with both from our resources:—and these are now lost—exhausted. Is it wonderful that the people should be paralyzed for a season? That there should be an interval when Patriotism knows not where to turn, or how to resolve, or in what way to effect its impatient purposes of struggle. There would be nothing to surprise, if this should be the case. But there is a hope. These fierce New Englanders, for whom they first went into battle, they will surely help us! We shall have succours from that quarter! They number on the roll 118,000 fighting men. They go into battle with a rush. They rather love it! They are surely on the march even now! But no! No! These New Englanders cannot drive the enemy out of Rhode Island, though there the British only number a paltry 3000 men! Ah! my friends, why do they expect such wonderful things from South Carolina? But, sorely stricken, feeble, crushed, impoverished, without means or money; without a leader, South Carolina does not succumb to Fortune! She is not conquered! She does not suffer herself to admit a conqueror, though many of her people may despair. In the very moment when the British proclaim their conquest to be complete, she recovers her strength and courage! Marion, a cripple, limping with a broken leg, has sounded his bugle in the swamps, for the rally of the fugitives. Sumter takes the field, & his trumpet echoes along the Apalachian summits, rousing up the brave pioneers; calling back to the rescue of the State, the native sons of the South, who have wandered away from the settlements, in the pursuit of newer homes. These people are all sons of the Carolinas & Virginia, and it is easy to win them back to the succour of their maternal homes. Pickens, Williams, Adair, Lacy, Bratton, Roebuck, and fifty other Chiefs, are as actively at work along the Broad & Pacolet; the Peedee, the Tyger, & the Santee rivers; and, even in the moment of greatest prostration, there arose that brilliant race of Partisan warriors, all from the South—all to the manor born, who have never been surpassed, & rarely equalled, in any quarter of the globe! In three months after the British General had declared South Carolina to be a conquered province, he was forced to declare her to be every where in a state of revolt! What forces won the battles of King’s Mountain, Musgrove’s, Hanging Rock, Blackstocks, and a hundred other fields, where Marion, Sumter, Pickens, Williams, Bratton and Cleveland commanded? The forces of the Carolinas, & mostly of South Carolina. In the battle of King’s Mountain, for example, Williams who was slain upon the heights, within 10 feet of the British Col. Page 226 →Ferguson, led 400 South Carolinians into the field, a larger force than represented any other State on the occasion. So far from the people of South Carolina not taking the field they were never out of it;—winter & summer found them busy in perpetual sieges; skirmishes & battles! It was the Partisans who conquered all the small garrisons and outposts of the British;—Forts Motte, Watson, Granby, Georgetown, Augusta, Silver Bluff, Dorchester. The Continentals failed of success in nearly every battle;—before Camden, 96, Hobkirks, Orangeburg, Eutaw; and they alone were allowed a respite from service during the heats of summer; the Partisans being all the while employed; foraying & fighting; cutting off the British supplies, and providing our own! And these were all Southern militiamen; mostly of South Carolina—You have been told that South Carolina possessed during the Revolution a population more tainted with disaffection than any other colony. This is not true! Her tory population was brought into more active exhibition in consequence of the frontier position which she occupied; the facility of access to her interior; and the greater degree of virulence with which the civil war was waged within her borders; leaving no portion of her people a safe refuge from strife. This was due in some degree to the fact that she was almost the only field of conflict during the three last years of the war. Active operations had almost ceased every where else; the closing events made naturally the greatest impression; and the war carried its sting in its tail! The malignity of the strife was increased, in due degree with the increasing efforts of the British, growing desperate with the growing hopelessness of their cause. They strove equally for the failing credit of their arms, and in pursuit of those spoils which would help their fortunes. Hence their venom in conflict; hence the terrible extent of their marauding. South Carolina was a rich field which they gleaned to the uttermost. In so small a province, so thinly peopled, with the population, almost to a man in the field; on one side or the other; private feuds added keener rancour to the natural ferocity of war; and the conflict was invariably urged to the extremest issues. Greene says, “the people here pursue each other like wild beasts”; yet the critic of today, would tell you that they never fought at all—that South Carolina was lukewarm! Lukewarm! Such a people are never lukewarm! They work with intensity under every passion! And there were good reasons why, so far from being lukewarm, here, they should engage in the struggle with the bitterest intensity. There were popular elements in conflict, in our interior settlements, which we can scarcely find any where else. South Carolina was compelled to bear the blasting influence of a people unrestrained by the discipline of arms, and free from all responsibility, whom she did not know or own. To her fields, from 1778 to 1782, inclusive, came all the swarms of refugees, who had been driven out, in 1776, from all the colonies south of the Hudson! These had first fled to Florida, as the tories, north of the Hudson, mostly found refuge in Canada. So soon as the British armies penetrated Georgia and Carolina, all these Page 227 →refugees, a locust pestilence, following in the wake of the British, scattered themselves over our plains. They were destitute, desperate of fortune, malignant as Hell! They ravaged, burned & plundered when they came. They had to revenge the past, and to provide for the future. They were sleepless in the pursuit of both objects; and these, alone, scattered in roving bands over the whole country, gave sufficient employment to the Partisans, who were compelled to break up into little squads, the better to protect each isolated settlement. The actual population was thus the prey of the intruder. These loyalists were not ours. To the people of the country, they were as strange of aspect, hirsute, wild, savage monstrous, as were the Scandinavians, when they first flung them- selves, with shrieks & songs of terror, upon the peaceful cities of Italy. Backed, as they were, by the British garrisons, at every commanding station, the wonder is how our Partisans should be able to maintain themselves at all. Their succours of Continentals, from without the State never exceeded 3000 bayonets. They got no money, no supplies, scarce any ammunition, and, for half the time, were half clad in moss, rather as a protection against the friction of belt and cartridge box and musket, than as a defence against the weather. The resources of South Carolina supported both armies, mainly, in three States, for nearly three years. Her advances accordingly, made her, at the close of the war, the largest creditor State of the Union. Yet, people will have it that she did not do enough! With her small resources she did as much as any other State in the Confederacy. But it is not allowed me, to protract the subject, in consideration of the score of minor charges, which have been made against her. These come chiefly from persons even more ignorant than malignant. Either they know nothing of the History, or their moral lacks in its review. Enough that I repeat, in the briefest summary the true history which the Chronicles must every where sustain. The closing struggles of the war were in South Carolina mostly; the bloody frequency of her fields of fight, declare the superior earnestness of the contending parties; the final events made the most fearful impression; the venom & virulence of the war were reserved, as usual, for the last acts of this fierce tragedy, and South Carolina, where the last blood of the Revolution, and almost the first, was shed, was compelled to endure them all. Those who read the History, as they should, with no malignant determination to rake up the evil and suppress the good; to expose the base, and deny the noble; will soon be forced to admit that the exertions of South Carolina were unexampled in the case of so feeble a state; that she was one of the most self-sacrificing of the whole Confederacy; that her spirit was always greater than her strength; and so prompted friend and foe equally to overrate her ability! A few more words, my friends, and I have done. South Carolina was the first colony to second Massachusetts. She had no such interests at stake—no such causes of complaint, and plunged headlong into the conflict. Her battles followed close upon those of Lexington & Bunker. She defeated the first British fleet—is the only power that Page 228 →ever did defeat a British fleet. In those days it was no part of the policy of Massachusetts to deny or decry her services. It does not become her that she should do so now. The Past of both regions ought to be secure. Let the strifes of the Present be what they may, neither party gains by the brutal defamation of the other. If there is to be strife between our respective countries—if the future is to witness a conflict among ourselves—and this great empire be doomed to the convulsions of Civil War,—let the issues be unmixed; simple, single, unconfounded! If South Carolina, imbecile in the Past—be now imbecile—no matter from what cause—there need be no effort to prove the fact by argument. It will prove itself, in action! If imbecile, past and present, how absurd for the brave to go into the discussion! We scorn the imbecile; we do not contend with them! We crush them under foot, and feel that, while we do so, we do nothing. We argue with those only who can coerce our respect. Massachusetts gains nothing by showing that South Carolina is faithless as a friend, & worthless as a foe! Let her establish the fact in either case, & what follows? Is the argument meant to persuade the imbecile that she should yield without struggle?—submit,—that she may escape from blows & bondage? Ah! my friends, what real power, confident in itself, and noble in its courage, ever descends to such an artifice? Better, braver, nobler, the short process, of the mailed hand, & the biting weapon. Better for both parties—for the honor of the one, and the due conviction of the other. Standing, here, before you, on a purely Literary Mission,—with all my tastes, feelings, sentiments, habits, opposed to brutality & violence,—I yet deprecate no wrath—no censure; appeal to no sympathies; ask no forbearance. I demand, of a just and conscientious people; in a moment of comparative calm; in a hall sacred to peace, letters and the arts; I demand justice for my Mother Country. She has been more faithful to you,—more submissive—than she ever was to Britain; more true to your cause than she has ever been to her own! If she is now to perish,—if she is to be isolated by odium, that she may be more easily offered up at the altar, without sympathy or succour—be it so! Let the Future declare itself in its grimmest aspect, I shall not fear for her deportment in the worst of seasons. As neither Massachusetts, nor any other State, will gain any thing of honour when they lend a too eager [unintelligible word] to the defamation of the Past of South Carolina, so, be sure, the profit will be quite as small from her contemplated destruction in the future. If her doom is written, be equally sure, that she will fall no easy victim. With her lithe and sinewy limbs & muscles, she will twine herself around the giant caryatids which sustain the anchor of the great Confederacy, and falling like the strong man of Israel, will bring down with her, in a common ruin, the vast and wondrous fabric, which her own prowess has so much helped to raise. Then, if there shall be one surviving sister, sitting solitary in the desolation, she will remain a monument, more significant of ruin than all the wreck which grows Page 229 →around her—the trophy of a moral desolation, which, by perversity and wrong, by a base selfishness which knew not how to be just, or how to be human, has with fratricidal hand, destroyed all its own securities and hopes—a moral suicide.—Forgive me, my friends, if I have spoken warmly; but you would not, surely, have me speak coldly in the assertion of a Mother’s honour!