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Chapter 14:
South Carolina Founds the American union.
June—July, 1765.
the essays of
Freeman had appeared, and the sum-
mons for the
Congress had gone forth from
Massachusetts, when the resolves of
Virginia were published to the world.
‘They have spoken treason,’ said the royalists.
‘Is it treason,’ retorted others, ‘for the deputies of the people to assert their rights, or to give them away?’
‘Oh! those
Virginians,’ cried
Oxenbridge Thacher, from his deathbed, where, overplied by public exertions, he was wasting away with a hectic, ‘those
Virginians are men; they are noble spirits.
I long to be out—to speak in court against tyranny, words that shall be read after my death.’
‘Why,’ said one of his friends, ‘are not our rights and liberties as boldly asserted by every government in
America as by
Virginia?’ * * * ‘Behold,’ cried another, ‘a whole continent awakened, alarmed, restless, and disaffected.’
1 Every where, from North to South—through the press, in letters, or as they met
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in private, for counsel, or in groups in the street, the
‘Sons of Liberty’ told their griefs to one another, and planned retaliation or redress.
‘No good reason can be given,’ observed the more calm among them, ‘why the colonies should not modestly and soberly inquire, what right the parliament of Great Britain has to tax them.’
‘We were not sent out to be slaves,’ they continued, citing the example of ancient
Greece, and the words of
Thucydides; ‘we are the equals of those who remained behind.
Americans hold equal rights with those in Britain, not as conceded privileges, but as inherent and indefeasible rights.’
‘We have the rights of Englishmen,’ was the common voice, ‘and as such we are to be ruled by laws of our own making, and tried by men of our own condition.’
2
‘If we are Englishmen,’ said one, ‘on what footing is our property?’
‘The great
Mr. Locke,’ said another, ‘lays it down that no man has a right to that which another may take from him.’
And a third, proud of his respect for the law, sheltered himself under the words of the far-famed
Coke: ‘The
Lord may tax his villain, high or low, but it is against the franchises of the land for freemen to be taxed but by their own consent in parliament.’
‘If the people in
America are to be taxed by the representatives of the people in
England, their malady,’ said
Hopkins, of
Rhode Island, ‘is an increasing evil, that must always grow greater by time.’
‘When the parliament once begins,’ such was the discourse at
Boston, ‘there is no drawing a line.’
‘And it is only the first step,’ repeated the
New-York owners of large
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estates; ‘a land tax for all
America will be thought
of next.’
3
‘It is plain,’ said even the calmest, ‘Englishmen do not regard
Americans as members of the same family, brothers, and equals, but as subordinates, bound to submit to oppression at their pleasure.’
‘
A bill was even prepared,’ thus men warned each other against new dangers, ‘that authorized quartering British soldiers upon American private families.’
‘And is not our property seized,’ they further exclaimed, ‘by men who cry, “give, give,” and never say, “enough,” and thrown into a prerogative court to be forfeited without a jury?’
4
‘There is not silver enough in the colonies to pay for the stamps,’ computed patriot financiers, ‘and the trade by which we could get more is prohibited.’
‘And yet,’ declared the eager merchants of
New-York, ‘we have a natural right to every freedom of trade of the
English.’
‘To tax us, and bind our commerce and restrain manufactures,’ reasoned even the most patient, ‘is to bid us make brick without straw.’
‘The northern colonies will be absolutely restricted from using any articles of clothing of their own fabric,’ predicted one colony to another.
And men laughed as they added: ‘catching a mouse within his majesty's colonies with a trap of our own making will be deemed, in the ministerial cant, an infamous, atrocious, and nefarious crime.’
‘A colonist,’ murmured a Boston man who had dipped into
Grenville's pamphlet, ‘a colonist cannot make a
horse-shoe
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or a hob-nail, but some ironmonger of Britain shall
bawl that he is robbed by the “ American republican.”
’ ‘Yes, they are even stupid enough,’ it was said in the town of
Providence, ‘to judge it criminal for us to become our own manufacturers.’
5
‘We will eat no lamb,’ promised the multitude, seeking to retaliate; ‘we will wear no mourning at funerals.’
‘We will none of us import British goods,’ said the traders in the towns.
The inhabitants of
North Carolina set up looms for weaving their own clothes, and
South Carolina was ready to follow the example.
‘The people,’ wrote the LieutenantGover-nor
Sharpe, of
Maryland, ‘will go on upon manufactures.’
‘We will have homespun markets of linens and woollens,’ passed from mouth to mouth, till it found its way across the
Atlantic, and alarmed the king in council; ‘the ladies of the first fortune shall set the example of wearing homespun.’
‘It will be accounted a virtue in them to wear a garment of their own spinning.’
‘A little attention to manufactures will make us ample amends for the distresses of the present day, and render us a great, rich, and happy people.’
6
When the churchmen of
New-York preached loyalty to the king as the
Lord's anointed, ‘The people,’ retorted
William Livingston, ‘are the
Lord's anointed.
Though named “mob” and “rabble,” the people are the darling of
Providence.’
Was the
Bible quoted as demanding deference to all in authority?
‘This,’
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it was insisted, ‘is to add dulness to impiety.’
For
‘tyranny,’ they cried, ‘is no government; the gospel promises liberty, glorious liberty.’
‘The gospel,’ so preached
Mayhew, of
Boston, always, ‘the gospel permits resistance.’
7
And then patriots would become maddened with remembering, that ‘some high or low American had had a hand in procuring every grievance.’
‘
England,’ it was said, ‘is deceived and deluded by placemen and office-seekers.’
‘Yes,’ exclaimed the multitude; ‘it all comes of the horse-leeches.’
When ‘the friends to government’ sought to hush opposition by terror of the power of parliament and its jealousy of its own supremacy, ‘you are cowards,’ was the answer; ‘you are fools; you are parasites; or, rather, you are parricides.’
8
‘Power is a sad thing,’ said the Presbyterians of
Philadelphia; ‘our mother should remember we are children and not slaves.’
9 ‘When all
Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them,’ such was the response of the Calvinists of the
North, ‘the people answered the king, saying: ‘What portion have we in David?
what inheritance in the son of Jesse?
To your tents, O Israel!
Now see to thine own house, David!’’
10 ‘Who cares,’ said the more hardy, ‘whether George or Louis is the sovereign, if both are alike?’
11 ‘The beast of burden,’ continued others, ‘asks not whose pack it carries.’
12 ‘I would bear allegiance to King George,’ said one who called himself a lover of truth, ‘but not be a slave to his British subjects.’
13
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‘But the members of parliament,’ argued the
royalists, ‘are men of the highest character for wisdom, justice, and integrity, and incapable of dealing unjustly.’
‘Admitting this to be true,’ retorted
Hopkins, ‘one who is bound to obey the will of another is as really a slave, though he may have a good master, as if he had a bad one; and this is stronger in politic bodies than in natural ones.’
The plea recurred, that the British parliament virtually represented the whole British empire.
‘It is an insult on the most common understanding,’ thought
James Habersham of
Georgia, and every American from the banks of the
Savannah to the frontier of
Maine, ‘to talk of our being virtually represented in parliament.’
‘It is an insult on common sense to say it,’ repeated the
Presbyterian ministers of the middle states to the Calvinist ministers of
New England. ‘Are persons chosen for the representatives of
London and
Bristol, in like manner chosen to be the representatives of
Philadelphia or
Boston?
Have two men chosen to represent a poor borough in
England, that has sold its votes to the highest bidder, any pretence to say that they represent
Virginia or
Pennsylvania?
And have four hundred such fellows a right to take our liberties?’
14
But it was argued again and again: ‘
Manchester,
Birmingham, and
Sheffield, like America, return no members.’
‘Why,’ rejoined
Otis, and his answer won immediate applause in
England,
15 ‘why ring everlasting changes to the colonists on them?
If they are not represented, they ought to be.’
‘Every man of a sound mind,’ he continued, ‘should have his vote.’
‘Ah, but,’ replied the royalists, holding
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Otis to his repeated concessions, ‘you own that par-
liament is the supreme legislature; will you question its jurisdiction?’
And his answer was on the lips of all patriots, learned and unlearned: ‘
Lord Coke June declares, that it is against
Magna Charta and against the franchises of the land, for freemen to be taxed but by their own consent; Lord Coke rules, that an act of parliament against common law is void.’
16
Thus opinion was echoed from mind to mind, as the sun's rays beam from many clouds, all differing in tints, but every hue an emanation from the same fires.
In the midst of the gloom, light broke from the excitement of a whole people.
Associations were formed in
Virginia, as well as in
New England, to resist the Stamp Act by all lawful means.
Hope began to rise, that American rights and liberties might safely be trusted ‘to the watchfulness of a united continent.’
The insolence of the royal officers provoked to insulated acts of resistance The people of
Rhode Island, angry with the commander of a ship of war, who had boarded their vessels and impressed their seamen, seized his boat, and burned it on
Newport17 Common.
Men of
New England, ‘of a superior sort,’ had obtained of the government of
New Hampshire a warrant for land down the western slope of the
Green Mountains, on a branch of the Hoosic, twenty miles east of the
Hudson river; formed already a community of sixty-seven families, in as many houses, with an ordained minister; had elected their own municipal officers; founded three several public schools; set their meeting-house among the primeval forests
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of beech and maple; and, in a word, enjoyed the
flourishing state which springs from rural industry, intelligence, and unaffected piety.
They called their village
Bennington.
The royal officers at
New-York, disposed anew of that town, as well as of others near it, so that the king was known to the settlers near the
Green Mountains, chiefly by his agents, who had knowingly sold his lands twice over.
18 In this way, the soil of
Bennington became a fit battle-ground for independence.
Events like these sowed the seeds of discontent; but still there was no present relief for
America, unless union could be perfected.
Union was the hope of
Otis—union that ‘should knit and work into the very blood and bones of the original system every region, as fast as settled.’
Yet how comprehensive and how daring the idea!
The traditions of the Board of Trade branded it as ‘mutinous.’
19 Massachusetts had proceeded cautiously and almost timidly, naming for its delegates to the proposed Congress, with the patriot
Otis, two others who were ‘friends to government.’
20
Virginia was ready to convince the world that her people were firm and unanimous in the cause of liberty,
21 but its newly-elected assembly was not suffered by
Fauquier to come together.
New Jersey received the circular letter of
Massachusetts on the twentieth of June, the last day of the session of its legislature.
The Speaker, a friend to the
British government, at first inclined to urge sending delegates to the proposed Congress; but, on
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some ‘advice’ from the governor, changed his mind,
and the house, in the hurry preceding the adjournment, rather from uncertainty than the want of goodwill, unanimously declined the invitation.
The Assembly of
New Hampshire seemed to approve but did not adopt it.
The great measure was in peril; and its failure
would make of American resistance a mockery.
‘Nothing will be done in consequence of this intended Congress,’ wrote
Bernard, in July; and he seized the opportunity to press ‘more and more’ upon the government at home ‘the necessity of taking into their hands the appointment of the
American civil list,’ as well as changing the council of the province.
Even the liberal Governor of
Maryland reported ‘that the resentment of the colonists would probably die out; and that, in spite of the violent outcries of the lawyers, the Stamp Act would be carried into execution.’
But far away towards the lands of the sun, the Assembly of South Carolina was in session; and on the twenty-fifth day of July, the circular from
Massachusetts was debated.
Many objections were made to the legality, the expediency, and most of all to the efficiency of the proposed measure; and many eloquent words were uttered, especially by the youthful
John Rutledge, when the subject, on the deliberate resolve of a small majority, was referred to a committee, of which
Gadsden was the chairman.
He was a man of deep and clear convictions; thoroughly sincere; of an unbending will, and a sturdy, impetuous integrity, which drove those about him, like a mountain torrent dashing resistlessly on an over-shot
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wheel, though sometimes clogging with back water
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.’
