USA > South Carolina > Biographical sketches of the bench and bar of South Carolina, vol. II > Part 24
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On the adjustment of the Tariff question, Mr. Calhoun gave himself, with great energy, to his labors as a Senator, in the more general measures in which the country was interested. Attached as he had been, from principle, to the party of Gen- eral Jackson; desirable as it evidently was on the part of his friends to bring about a reconciliation, and to aid the admin- istration with his talents and influence, he did no act, he said no word, indicating a desire to reconcile past differences, or
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to avail himself of support. He felt he had nothing to atone for, and therefore had none of the successes of compliance.
He displayed his independence of party ties prominently, in the memorable debate on the Removal of the Deposites; he condemned the dismissal of Mr. Duane, as an abuse of power; and, though he exposed such defects of a national banking system, he did not hesitate to deny the right of the Secretary to withhold the deposits, while the Bank performed its obligations faithfully. He predicted, in a speech of ex- traordinary ability, various errors in the management of the currency. He denounced, with temperate but decided expres- sion, the reception of the celebrated protest of the President; and placed the powers of the several departments of the Gov- ernment under the Constitution in a novel and satisfactory light. He raised, by motion, a Committee of Inquiry into the abuses of Executive patronage; the able report of which committee, prepared and submitted by himself, astounded the country as to the extent of that corrupt system, and produced a more powerful and just reaction against the administration than any effort of its avowed opponents. With a mind set- tled in its convictions as to the powers of a national bank, and of State banking institutions, as vehicles for the dispens- ing of the money patronage of the Government, he conceived and advocated the adopting the principle of that scheme, since carried into effect under the name of the Sub-Treasury. The Specie Circular next occupied his attention. He denied the authority of the President to issue the order on which it was based; but regarding the mischiefs of the step as beyond remedy, declined voting on the question of its revision.
It was at this juncture, that the political sky began to over- cast with the approaching Abolition storm. The immediate fears on this subject was removed by the firmness of Mr. Calhoun, who, foreseeing the danger of receiving petitions on this topic, which began to overload the tables of Congress, by his arguments and influence, procured the settlement of a precedent against their reception. On the question of the ad- mission of Michigan, the danger spread again. Mr. Calhoun was opposed to admitting a State on the authority of a mere
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informal meeting of the people inhabiting a territory. His views are presented in the following brief extract :
" My opinion was, and still is, that the movement of the people of Michigan, in forming for themselves a State consti- tution, without waiting for the assent of Congress, was revo- lutionary, as it threw off the authority of the United States over the territory ; and that we were left at liberty to treat the proceedings as revolutionary, and to remand her to her terri- torial condition, or to wave the irregularity, and to recognize what was done as rightfully done, as our authority was alone concerned.
" A territory cannot be admitted till she becomes a State ; and in this I stand on the authority of the Constitution itself, which expressly limits the power of Congress to admit new States into the Union. But, if the Constitution had been silent, he would indeed be ignorant of the character of our political system, who did not see that states, sovereign and independent communities, and not territories, can only be ad- mitted. Ours is a union of States-a Federal Republic. States, and not territories, form its component parts, bound together by a solemn league, in the form of a constitutional compact. In coming into the Union, the State pledges its faith to this sacred compact; an act which none but a sove- reign and independent community is competent to perform ; and, of course, a territory must first be raised to that condition, before she can take her stand among the confederated states of our Union. How can a territory pledge its faith to the Constitution ? It has no will of its own. You give it all its powers, and you can at pleasure overrule all her actions. If she enters as a territory, the act is yours, not hers. Her con- sent is nothing without your authority and sanction. Can you, can Congress become a party to the constitutional com- pact ? How absurd."
This view of the subject was novel then-it is novel now. The question has been since raised on the admission of Cali- fornia, but the grounds on which Mr. Calhoun placed it, have been entirely overlooked.
Our limits will not allow us to follow Mr. Calhoun's brilliant
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career through the minor phases of his public life. We pass to two great and wonderful exhibitions of his mind and integ- rity. We leave out of view his able speeches on the McLoud matter ; Mr. Crittenden's resolutions to permit the interference of executive officers in elections ; the veto power; the Bank- rupt Bill ; and look to his services on the Oregon question. In this controversy Mr. Calhoun saw but the great interests of the nation, and the justice of her position. He became the great, the leading advocate of peace. He threw his influence into the scale at the very moment when that influence was most needed and could be most powerfully felt. He per- formed an act which both God and man approved. He rose superior to the excitements of the occasion. He repelled from his breast the national feelings, which so frequently rule the judgment. He rejected the prejudices which grow up in the American heart against English power; and in the act, anti- cipated the happiness of millions. Few can estimate the value of Mr. Calhoun's services in the adjustment of this interna- tional difficulty. Had Mr. Calhoun no other claim to the favor of his countrymen, that were enough to secure for his name immortality. We are disgusted with the idea of the crime and guilt which would have followed a war with Great Britain on the Oregon question ; and in proportion to our detestation of an unjust war, rises our respect for Mr. Calhoun's noble effort to avert it. We almost tremble when we survey the consequences which would have ensued. We blush to view the pretexts set up for a resort to arms. Is our nation- one boasting its foundation on principles of pacification and good order, to go to war only for success? Are human beings, proud of their residence in a land of liberty and laws, to contest as wild beasts, vaunting of their strength and struggling only for spoils ? Is the commerce of all civilized countries to be wrecked, the peaceful fields of agriculture to be rendered desolate ; are men to be butchered, and widows and orphans to be left mourning, merely to gratify the ambition of party leaders, and to minister to the vain externals of politics ? Who-what advocate of that war ever promised himself, or his country, or the cause of humanity, a single
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advantage which it were not a crime to boast ? Who, in see- ing that chivalrous spirit who interposed his magnanimous efforts to remove all cause of difficulty, did not feel honor, truth, justice, were all vindicated in their own temple, and the cause of universal peace among men subserved ?
It is scarcely necessary for us to say that there are many things in the course of Great Britain we do not approve. But, we also declare, there are some things we venerate and respect. Our memory dwells with pleasure on the fact that, we have sprung from her; that we have been taught the purity of our language, amidst the glorious remains of her literature, and to appreciate the beauties of art and philosophy in her splendid monuments of genius. We take delight in the recollection that we were instructed by her in our religion and laws, and in our first rudiments of civil freedom. That her Magna Charta extends its rays to our institutions, and that the blood of Russell and Sydney sprinkled the door-posts of our dwellings, and exempted us from political death. To us with these emotions, the settlement of the cause of this last dispute brought the noblest reflections, and to the mem- ory of him, who, more than any patriot and statesman, was the instrument, nay, the conqueror of peace, we would give the best and highest rewards which a grateful country can bestow.
Scarcely had this affair been settled, before another cloud rose on the horizon. The long-agitated question of inter- ference with slavery in the District of Columbia, and the new territories, was opened to wide and intemperate debate. Ever jealous of the slightest invasion of the Constitution-ever be- lieving the South, in respect to this institution, in peril, Mr. Calhoun, in feeble health, hurried to his post.
It were fruitless to open the book of this controversy over Mr. Calhoun's beir. The South knows the wrong done her in regard to this topic; she knows the moral and political influences that crowd around the question; but the whole world knows her arguments of right, and her means of repelling attack. She will make no boast of her chivalry, and hesitate long to anticipate the judgment of posterity as to her
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patriotism. If these have not been attested in many well- fought fields in the Revolutionary and late wars, she claims no privilege of being further heard. On the facts of her slave institutions she makes no explanation, and requires no apology. She will arbitrate mere differences of opinion with any power, but will yield no right in which the integrity of the Constitution and the principles of political liberty are at issue. For the protection of those, she places herself on the moral force of natural laws, and will never resort to physical means of defence, till all peaceful agencies are exhausted.
Will it be said-" this is Disunion?" Not so. Much as we revere the institutions of our State-far as we would com- mit ourselves for their preservation-we cannot doubt, we never have doubted, we never will doubt the virtue of loving the Union, and guarding its inviolability. It is true, as was said by Mr. Calhoun, declarations will not preserve it. But it is equally true that sentiments give direction to actions. Though the greatest security of it will be found in the most faithful observance of the obligations of the Constitution; this fact does not forbid our contemplating with alarm, the consequences of a dissolution. This great confederacy of States, considered irrespective of a centralizing power-which might be used as a means of destruction to the authority of the States severally, viewed in connection with the history of its origin, with the characters of the immortal men who originated and have sus- tained the Union-certainly is beyond all value. No specu- lation can be indulged as to its worth to posterity and to us, in these respects ; no standard of appreciation can be formed, to designate its relative price. It is a sacred heir-loom of a family, having higher claims to respect than its age or its parents ; its value consists in the memory of the ancestry which first achieved it; in the honorable recollections of the triumphs amidst which it was won and worn. Its worth is at once moral and traditionary. It is full of past glory, of present respect, of future hope. It is the title, the dignity, the birth-record of Freedom ; the evidence of all that is noble in the history of her noblest contests. Adorning and enriching the story of our country, it comes to us pregnant with proofs
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of struggles and successes which were national at first, are national now, and should be national to the last. How can this relic be divided ? Who shall take Bunker Hill, Eutaw, Saratoga, or the Palmetto Fort, in the partition of those glories ? How, when we come to make up the list of the sacrifices and the victims of the Revolution, shall we divide them ? Long be the period removed, when posterity shall throng about the resting places of the illustrious dead, and prepare to divide the sacred inheritance !
We approach the close of Mr. Calhoun's life. The human mind must necessarily pass through a trial, when in great calamity it is called to recognize the superior wisdom of God's judgment, and to practice resignation amidst its griefs. The vivid intellect was declining at a time of great danger to the principles he had so long defended, and which had so long filled his thoughts. On one occasion he said, he desired to be heard as one asking nothing for himself, but whose only wish was to see his country free, prosperous and happy, The same sentiment was on his lips when he died. The man who conquers the cruel terrors of death-who looks in the trying moment of dissolution, not on his own immortality on earth, but to the immortality of his country-who, anxious for her liberty, overcomes the shock of disease, the spectacle of a mourning wife and children-whose last words attest his de- votion to the perpetuity of the Constitution-is surely a patriot. The confessions of one whose whole life we have distrusted, force themselves on the belief, when they come forth in the instant of dissolution. How much more solemn and impressive the admonitions of one whose long life, exhib- iting the utmost purity of private character, and the firmest displays of patriotic self-denial, dying with a prayer for his country on his lips ! Such was the life, such the death of Mr. Colhoun. On his cenotaph let that be written, to which his life was a martyr-Sincerity. Long in his native State-long in the history of his nation-will his memory illustrate the character of the true statesman, and furnish uncommon inducements to a life of virtue. The implacable hatred which pursued him-the secret envy that misrepresented him-are
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dead ! A State, ever the rewarder of faithful services in the cause of public virtue, mourning her eldest son ; a nation, la- menting the extinguishment of an intellect long enlightening her progress, stand about his grave, and record the incontes- table triumph of The Honest Man.
Few men can withstand the influence of that love of public approbation, which, for wise purposes, is planted in the human breast. Few have the firmness to reject honors for the sake of virtue ;- few, in the moment of popular favor, can put back the rewards offered ;- few can display, amidst temp- tation, the immutability of conscience. Lord Camden, in English history, Mr. Calhoun in American, are conspicuous examples of these unusual gifts. Alike they were intellectual, alike unchangeably incorruptible. Always important to parties, always nnaffected by their corruptions, they were alike victims to whatever was just. For them office had no allure- ment, and political power no terror. They declared belief of right as frankly as they denounced wrong; and, as was said by St. Jerome, of religion, if in error, it was a glorious privilege to be deceived with such guides.
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CHARLES FRASER.
This distinguished and venerable gentleman was born on the 20th August, 1782, in the City of Charleston, where he was educated and has always resided. When at school he was a favorite of our great Chief Justice, the Honorable John Rut- ledge-the guiding star of our State during the darkest days of the Revolution. The youth looked up with veneration to the sage, and learned from his lips much of the history of our country. The Chief Justice and his father married sisters. He was reared under the happiest influences in the society to which he belonged-the best in our State-and there he learned that refinement and urbanity which characterise the Carolina gentleman. Mr. Fraser early showed a desire to become a painter; but, his father having died when he was but nine years of age, the friend who had the charge of his education would not yield to his wish, but directed his educa- tion to the law. He remained in a lawyer's office for three years, then deserted it, and pursued, for a short time, his favorite art-painting. In 1804, he resumed the study of the law in the office of the Honorable John Julius Pringle-so long the very able and highly distinguished Attorney-General of the State. With his capacities and habits of application, under the auspices of so great a master he could not fail to make much progress in his legal studies. He was admitted to the Bar on the 10th February, 1807, in the City of Charles- ton. Soon after his admission, he delivered an oration before the Cincinnati and Revolution Societies, on the fourth of July, 1808, which was universally admired, and furnished the strongest evidence of his fitness for his profession. His master in the law, full of years and of honors, began, about this time, to wind up his affairs at the Bar, and soon retired from the Attorney-Generalship. He well knew Mr. Fraser's integrity and ability; to him he entrusted much of his unfinished legal business, recommended him to his clients, and, by his
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countenance and commendation, promoted the progress of his young friend. At a future day, on the death of his venera- ble and venerated preceptor, that young friend showed his deep respect and regard in an obituary that did honor to the illustrious dead and to the mindful living.
In the fall of 1810, Mr. Fraser was one of the first to unite with several gentlemen of similar literary taste and pursuits in founding the Conversation Club, which has so long existed in Charleston, and has been to them and the friends who have often honored them with their company, a source of much improvement and rational enjoyment. For this Club, Mr. Fraser wrote his admirable Reminiscences of Charleston. They will remain an enduring monument to his memory, and an authentic record of an interesting portion of our his- tory. About the same time, he contributed to a series of religious essays, which appeared every Saturday in the Charles- ton Courier, and which were so highly esteemed that they were collected and published in a handsome octavo volume, which, some years after, was re-published in England.
He continued to practice law for about eleven years. In that time he had secured a competency ; he then abandoned the law, and devoted himself to the pursuit of the profession he loved most-painting-to the indulgence of his literary tastes, and to promoting every enterprise and institution con- nected with the improvement and refinement of the commu- nity. In 1817, he was elected a Trustee of the College of Charleston. Soon after, he was appointed to the Treasurership of the Board of Trustees of that institution, and for many years most faithfully performed its troublesome duties. His exertions and labors, together with those of his friend Judge King, and others, have done much to sustain the college, and place it in its present condition. At the laying of the corner- stone of the present new building, he delivered an excellent oration, which was published at the request of the Board of Trustees. On several public occasions, he has been specially solicited to address his fellow-citizens, and has uniformly acquitted himself with distinguished success. His style is remarkable for its chaste and classic purity and beauty. In
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1850, on the dedication of Magnolia Cemetery-that City of the Dead, which lies on the outskirts of Charleston-he was invited to deliver the address. It was the last public discourse which he pronounced, and its opening refers thus touchingly and gracefully to himself :
" Gentlemen,-You have not unappropriately selected one to address you on the dedication of Magnolia Cemetery, to whom the most of life is in retrospect, and whose future is bounded by no distant horizon. The occasion is solemn and impressive, and the reflections it excites well becomes him whose early friendships have almost passed away like a dream, and whose most cherished recollections are identified with the grave."
Few men have touched life at so many points as Mr. Fraser-to few has nature been so bountiful in her gifts; as a jurist and an artist, as an orator and an essayist, he has been equally successful. His influence to humanize and refine has been widely and decidedly felt. Admiration for his virtues and accomplishments induced the Hon. Mitchell King, Daniel Ravenel, Esq., Rev. Dr. Gilman, Dr. S. H. Dickson, Messrs. G. S. Bryan, F. A. Porcher, G. W. Flagg, John A. Alston, J. H. Taylor, and others of his friends, in February, 1857, to collect as many of his paintings and mini- atures as could be gathered, in a public exhibition. Three hundred and thirteen miniatures, and one hundred and thirty- nine landscapes and other paintings, were collected, and continued on public exhibition for many weeks-the whole forming a striking monument of his skill and industry.
Having thus adorned society by the graces of his accom- plishments, and honored his State by the productions of his pen and pencil, Mr. Fraser now lives in the calm retirement of a venerated old age-the repose of his declining years secured, no doubt, by reflections such as are expressed in the following impressive lines, written by him in 1847 :
" Keep thy heart with all diligence."-PROV. iv., 23.
Trust not that one unguarded thought, Which idly wantons in the mind, Shall vanish as it entered there, And leave no trace behind.
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Think not that unremembered words, In anger or resentment said, Because forgotten shall not live By truth immortal made.
Nor hope a single reckless act, Whose folly wayward youth beseems, Shall yield to time's oblivious hour With youth's departed dreams.
A page by angel pen inscribed Records what ne'er can be effaced,
And all you think, or do, or say Is there forever traced.
Then o'er the heart its hidden source Thy vigils keep with ceaseless care ; Let every purpose be thy best, Offence thy only fear.
And, oh ! what higher, holier hope Was e'er to man in mercy given, Than angel pen in lines of light Should write thy name in heaven.
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ENOCH HANFORD.
Enoch Hanford, Esq., was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, in the year 1777. He graduated at Yale College, on the 10th September, 1800. After studying law with Roger M. Sherman, Esq., he came to Fayetteville, N. C., where, in 1803, he became acquainted with Colonel William DeWitt, a gentleman resid- ing at Society Hill, who employed him as a private tutor for his son, Charles M. DeWitt, a young gentleman of fine talents, who was advantageously mentioned by that distinguished gen- tleman, James L. Petigru, Esq., in his semi-centennial address, delivered in the S. C. College Hall, December, 1855, as a member of the class of 1808. In the course of his first year's employment, he married his employer's daughter, Miss Mar- garet DeWitt ; and, in 1804, he conducted St. David's Acad- emy, at Society Hill.
He was elected in 1804, Professor of Languages in the South Carolina College, and, with Dr. Maxcy, President of the College, opened it on the 10th of January, 1805. This was rather a gloomy beginning, for a college-a president and one professor, but they boldly met the contingency, and com- menced the collegiate education of the young men of South Carolina, from which so much good has since been realized. A grateful people ought to remember, with honor and affection, the names of Maxcy and Hanford.
On the 28th of November, 1806, Professor Hanford resigned, and, in April, 1807, he was admitted to the Bar of the Law Courts; and, on the 26th of April, 1809, he was licensed to practice in the Court of Equity.
He practiced law at Society Hill, I presume, till his death, which occurred on the 9th of September, 1817, leaving two daughters and one son, who died when young.
He is described by Dr. Laborde, in his history of the college, p. 37-38, as " a gentleman of good personal appearance, and somewhat above the common size. His attainments in scol- arship were respectable, though not of that high order which
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would now be expected. They were the attainments of a well-educated gentleman, who did not pursue literature as a means of advancement in life; and, it is believed that he resorted to teaching, as a temporary employment, until he could establish himself advantageously in his chosen pro- fession."
During his connexion with the college, he was much re- spected by the students; and he rendered truly valuable services to the institution, at this early but trying period of its existence. As a lawyer, his attainments were good. His mind was well stored with the elementary principles of his profession. His arguments in court were sound, but his manner of speak- ing was slow and hesitating.
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