George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

[294] wheel, though sometimes clogging with back water

chap. XIV.} 1765 July.

from its own violence. He possessed not only that courage which defies danger, but that persistence which neither peril, nor imprisonment, nor the threat of death can shake. Full of religious faith, and at the same time inquisitive and tolerant, methodical, yet lavish of his fortune for public ends, he had in his nature nothing vacillating or low, and knew not how to hesitate or feign. After two legislatures had held back, South Carolina, by ‘his achievement,’ pronounced for union. ‘Our state,’ he used to say, ‘particularly attentive to the interest and feelings of America, was the first, though at the extreme end, and one of the weakest, as well internally as externally, to listen to the call of our northern brethren in their distresses. Massachusetts sounded the trumpet, but to Carolina is it owing that it was attended to. Had it not been for South Carolina, no Congress would then have happened.’

As the united American people spread through the vast expanse over which their jurisdiction now extends, be it remembered that the blessing of union is due to the warm-heartedness of South Carolina. ‘She was all alive, and felt at every pore.’ And when we count up those who, above others, contributed to the great result, we are to name the inspired ‘madman,’ James Otis; and the magnanimous, unwavering lover of his country, Christopher Gadsden.

Otis now seemed to himself to hear the prophetic song of the ‘Sibyls,’ chanting the spring-time of a ‘new empire.’