USA > South Carolina > Charleston County > Charleston > History of the New England Society of Charleston, South Carolina, for One Hundred Years, 1819-1919 > Part 12
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"The first of these alternatives I will not dis- cuss. I do not believe there is a person present who will give his adherence to a course like that when he shall be convinced that justice and safety in this Union can no longer be expected. I invite your attention for a moment to the second alternative, intending to present a few reasons
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why we may look with hopefulness upon such a termination to our present conflict; and, in pass- ing, I desire to say one word in reference to the intimation which has been made more than once that if the Southern states attempt to organize a new republic, they shall be 'whipped' back, or, as a member of Congress expresses it, a division of territory between free and slave states shall not take place, as eighteen millions are fully able to cope with eight millions.
"Language like this is pitiful, it is contempt- ible. Neither section can afford to go to war on this subject; but certain it is, while the South will not attack the Free States to force her institutions upon them, all their combined power can never compel her to relinquish one iota of right or release one solitary slave. But the North, with all her wealth and population, can less afford to go to war than the South. Peace at home is of the first importance to a commercial and manufactur- ing people, and peaceful markets abroad are abso- lutely necessary to their prosperity. The dense population of the Northern states must be kept employed or the question of food for the pauper will ring in louder tones than ever. Granting
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that peace will follow the act of separation, we turn to our resources. It is unnecessary to com- ment upon the spirit and temper of eight millions of men whose ancestors are known in history and whose contemporaries have added new luster to
- Southern fame upon the battlefields of Florida and Mexico. Nor is it needful to speak of the four millions of slaves whose labor now clothes the world; but we come at once to the results of this labor and the power it exerts upon those who would dictate to us the terms upon which we are to employ it. The parody upon Carlyle's well- known proverb, 'Cotton is King,' is literally true, and that king has his throne in the South. Of the three hundred millions of dollars of exports last year, two hundred millions were of the South. What a power is here-a power that can influence exchange and finance, control importations, and collect tribute from every nation under heaven. Even the North, whose busy intermeddlers are even now pulling at the very king-post of the fabric of their own prosperity, this same North depends upon us for thirty-five millions of dollars of cotton each year, and for which for so long a time we have consented to receive in return the
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in South Carolina would mark the 20th of Decem- ber with a significance destined to grow in impor- tance at each recurrence. It could not be expected that any great state movement would be effected without an actor representing New England. In the list of signatures affixed with determined and deliberate purpose to the Ordinance of Secession of the 20th of December, 1860, there was an honored name of a noble son of New England. It was a grateful privilege to recall to the attention of the New England Society that this name was that of their annual orator, Chancellor B. F. Dunkin, the faithful citizen, pure patriot, and upright magistrate."
The governor and the lieutenant-governor of South Carolina sent their regrets:
"The Governor presents his best respects to the New England Society and regrets that important business occupying his attention pre- vents his acceptance of their polite invitation for tomorrow evening. The Governor is pleased at the demonstration of fidelity contained in their note. Of this patriotic avowal the Governor has no doubt."
The lieutenant-governor wrote:
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"I have the honor to acknowledge your flattering invitation to be present with you this evening at your anniversary celebration, and regret that a previous engagement will preclude me from enjoying that pleasure. Permit me to offer you the following sentiment:
"The New England Society of Charleston: True to the instincts of their noble ancestors, they know the rights of their inheritance, and will ever fearlessly maintain them."
The mayor of the city was present, and felicitated the members.
In 1861 the members of the New England Society held their annual meeting in December, and at the suggestion of Hon. James B. Campbell dispensed with the annual dinner, donating the sum of one thousand dollars to hospitals in Charleston for the benefit of sick and wounded soldiers.
In 1862 the Society held a number of meetings. At a meeting held January 21, 1862, a donation of one hundred dollars was made to the Ladies' Benevolent Society, one of the principal charitable organizations of Charleston. This was the last meeting at which the venerable president, Mr. A. S. Willington, presided.
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The Society met again March 25, 1862. At this meeting, Otis Mills was elected president and a committee was appointed to draft appropriate resolutions upon the death of the president of the Society, which occurred February 10, 1862.
In a brochure published by the New England Society in 1885, it is stated that "no meetings of the Society were held during this interval, March 25, 1862-December 22, 1865." This statement is incorrect.
The annual meeting was held in December, 1862. Resolutions were adopted commemorating the noble life and exalted character of A. S. Wil- lington, who had served the Society for fifteen years as president. A number of donations were made to war benevolences and to other charities of the city.
In 1863 a number of meetings were held. January 31, 1863, a regular monthly meeting was held, at which Mrs. A. S. Willington, widow of the late president of the Society, was elected a life- member. Mrs. Willington joined the Society in order to assist in the noble works of charity which the Society was doing at the time. Mrs. Willington was the only woman ever elected to membership in the New England Society of
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Charleston. The annual meeting was held in December, 1863, at which routine business was transacted, officers elected, and the total income of the Society donated to charity.
In 1864, the darkest period of the War, no regular meetings of the Society were held, but it is of interest to note that the committee on charity continued the benevolent work of the Society. Not only did the New England Society fail to meet in regular session in 1864, but also a number of the other fraternal organizations of the city were unable to hold meetings on account of perilous conditions.
In 1865 the following advertisement appeared in the Charleston Daily Courier of December 22: "The members of the New England Society are requested to meet this evening at the Mills House, at six o'clock." The annual dinner was again omitted and the income of the Society for the year was distributed among the worthy charities of the community.
At the close of the War, the Society was strong and active. It is a significant fact that not a single member resigned during the war period. On its membership roll were the names of many of the most prominent men of the city,
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such as: Messrs. Robertson, Williams, Tucker, Johnson, Lebby, Tupper, Webb, Hastie, Hayden, Robinson, Pope, Campbell, Read, Street, Locke, Howland, Richards, Earle, Taylor, Brewster, Mills, Dunkin, and others of equal standing in the community.
It is a well-known fact that the New England Society during this period of stress and blood maintained its high standing in membership and in good works. The reason the Society lived and prospered during the trying five years of war was on account of its stainless record for more than forty years, and especially for the reason that the individual members of the Society were men of high and noble character, in whom the community had absolute trust and confidence.
Professor F. C. Woodward, of the South Carolina College, delivered an address before the Society at its annual celebration in 1895, in which he interpreted the true spirit of the old city. He said in part:
"If my tongue were touched with poetic fire, I might seek to emulate Wordsworth's praise of Yarrow in a trilogy upon Charleston unvisited, Charleston visited, and Charleston revisited. But
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though it is not poetry, it is truth that to this visi- tor Charleston unvisited was a joyous anticipation; visited, a happy realization; revisited, a climac- teric consummation. 'See Rome and die!' See Charleston and live!
"When, some years ago, I first heard of the New England Society of Charleston, I was struck with the apparent contradiction of the terms of that title. It suggested such paradoxes as the polar bears of the Sahara, tobogganing on the Equator, wooden nutmegs growing on the Pal- metto, a school of codfish storming the Battery. But this superficial fancy soon gave place to the conclusion that this title was a pregnant epigram, good fellowship that knows no prejudices, a national solidarity that ignores all sectionalism. So I take it and hail the omen. Does it not mean, this leaning of the Pine to the Palmetto, that there is room in their hearts for their Southern fellow-citizens and welcome at our hearts for our Down-East brethren ?
"There should be a twin fraternity: the New England Society of Charleston and the South Carolina Society of Boston; that while we are swapping turpentine for tin pans and cotton for
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calico, we may make generous interchange of Southern state pride and genial hospitality for Northern thrift and national patriotism."
THE CONDUCT OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY AND OF ITS MEMBERS DURING THE TRYING PERIOD OF RECONSTRUCTION
The contribution in terms of service and influ- ence rendered by the New Englanders in Charles- ton more than justified the confidence in which they had been held for half a century in South Carolina. It will suffice to mention a few out- standing instances of the loyalty and constructive activity of the men who represented New Eng- land traditions.
In 1866 the Society celebrated its forty-eighth anniversary. Its president, Otis Mills, had sold practically his whole estate, consisting of the very best realty in Charleston, and invested it in Con- federate bonds in order to assist the Confederacy. The investment was a total loss. James B. Campbell, the vice-president of the Society, had been elected United States senator by the legisla- ture of South Carolina. Both of these patriotic citizens were born in Massachusetts. Benjamin F. Dunkin, a New Englander, was chief justice of South Carolina.
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At this meeting, almost the entire income of the Society was donated for the assistance and comfort of Confederate soldiers in the city of Charleston. Ten representative men, a number of whom had served in the Confederate Army, joined the Society. During the years immediately following the Civil War, the membership became larger and the finances of the Society became more prosperous than at any time previously. These facts emphasize the high esteem in which the Society was held in the community.
In 1875 there came a crisis in South Carolina. D. H. Chamberlain, a New Englander and a mem- ber of the New England Society of Charleston, was governor of the state at the time. The judiciary, which ex-President Taft has defined as "the bulwark of our civilization," was threatened. The General Assembly of the state elected to the office of circuit judge W. J. Whipper and F. J. Moses, Jr. Governor Chamberlain refused to grant commissions to these men. There were two reasons why the Governor refused; the first was legal, the second was moral.
The state constitution provided that "for each circuit a judge shall be elected by the General Assembly, who shall hold his office for a term of
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four years." On January 18, 1872, F. J. Graham was elected judge of the first circuit, and John T. Green was elected judge of the third circuit. Their terms began in August of that year and, under the constitution, ended in August, 1876. Both Judge Green and Judge Graham died in office. In December, 1874, Colonel J. P. Reed was elected for the unexpired term of Judge Graham, and in January, 1875, Mr. Shaw was elected for the unexpired term of Judge Green. The present General Assembly, assuming that the terms of office of Judges Reed and Shaw expired in August, 1876, when the terms of Judges Grahain and Green, had they lived, would have expired, proceeded to elect W. J. Whipper as judge of the first circuit and F. J. Moses, Jr., as judge of the third circuit. This action was held to be in direct conflict with the constitution, which fixes the term of office of cir- cuit judge at four years, so that the terms of Judges Reed and Shaw did not expire until 1878. Another General Assembly would be elected the next November, and would be in session in 1876- 77, and 1877-78. That General Assembly, and no preceding General Assembly, could elect judges of the first and third circuits, and the act of the
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present General Assembly in assuming to elect Whipper and Moses was absolutely void. The General Assembly in so assuming to elect rested on the admitted fact that Judges Reed and Shaw were elected for an unexpired term only; but by a long series of adjudicated cases in this state before and since the War it was decided that a judge, once in office, no matter how or upon what condition, was in for the constitutional term, which in the present case was four years.
The News and Courier of December 22, 1875, made the following comment on the Governor's action:
"True to himself, to his honest purposes, and, above all, to the people of South Carolina, Gover- nor Chamberlain has flatly and decisively declined to issue commissions to W. J. Whipper and F. J. Moses, Jr., who claim to have been elected judges of the circuit court of this state. This action was foreshadowed when Governor Chamberlain de- clared that neither Whipper nor Moses had 'any qualities which approached to a qualification for judicial positions'; that Whipper is incapable and unfit, and Moses is crusted over with charges of 'corruption, bribery, and the utter prostitution of his official powers to the worst possible uses.' And
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it is the proper and natural consequence of the position taken by Governor Chamberlain a year ago when he declared that Whipper had not the ability, the legal learning, or the integrity to fit him for the position he sought.
"It is true that Governor Chamberlain bases his refusal to issue the commissions to Whipper and Moses upon the ground that the present General Assembly had not the right to elect them, for the reason that the terms of the present in- cumbents, Judges Reed and Shaw, do not expire until after the next general election. But it is evident that Governor Chamberlain, under other circumstances, would not have felt that he was justified in declining to commission persons whom the General Assembly had, whether right- fully or wrongfully, elected. In his own brave words, 'while in some cases presenting similar legal questions it might not be required of the Governor to decline commissions, the circum- stances of the present case compel me to this course.' Before him came two persons, who demanded that the governor of South Carolina officially recognize them as the ministers and expounders of that justice whose seat is the bosom of God. One of these persons is known to be a gambler, known
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to be illiterate, and believed to be a thief; and the other is known to be a debauchee, a bribe-taker, and shameless plunderer of the public. The people were threatened with the greatest calamity that has befallen any Southern state since the War. In this extremity, an extreme step was necessary. Governor Chamberlain has taken that step, and in taking it he has proved, as no other act could have proved, that no consideration of self or of party can move him a hair's breadth when the safety and peace of the whole people is in peril. The persons whom he was asked to commission are of the same political party with himself. It is certain that the scoundrels who elected them will pour out on the executive the vials of their wrath. Governor Chamberlain stands at bay, while the Radical hounds howl around him. He stands upon the Right. His sole guide is his public duty. And whoever else may be against him, the true people of the state, whose champion he is in the hour of their sorest need, will stand by him to the end.
"Think, for a moment, of the complexion given to the election of Moses and Whipper by that refusal to sign their commissions, which has been read with grateful satisfaction this morning in
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every state of the Union! It is no longer possible to say that these two persons are stigmatized because of their politics or class; it is no longer possible to declare that the opposition to them is only the expression of Democratic hatred of everything that is done by Republicans. Gover- nor Chamberlain is a New Englander, a soldier of the Union, a Republican from his youth up. Upon his loyalty to the Union and the Republican cause there is no stain. President Grant declares him to be the best governor in the South. And this Republican of the strictest sect, this Massa- chusetts governor of South Carolina, is com- pelled to cast away from him this Whipper and this Moses as things so infamous and unclean that they cannot and must not stand before the American people as having any recognition what- soever, save that which is found in their election by persons of their own character and calling. This will make the horrid story plain to every American citizen. By the first bold blow, the fight is half won!
"Governor Chamberlain has done for the people of South Carolina what no other living man could have done. Great was his oppor- tunity, and splendid is the use he has made of it.
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To him thanks eternal for interposing the shield of the executive authority between the chieftains of the robber band in Columbia and the people of the low country of South Carolina. But there is work now for the good people of South Carolina to do. Governor Chamberlain must be sustained and promptly, in what he has done. It must be made manifest, and quickly, that the heart of South Carolina is touched, and this assurance can only be given by mass meetings in every county in the state. Let Charleston begin the work! Tomorrow night, at latest, there should be an outpouring of the people of Charleston in vindication and approval of the conduct of Governor Chamberlain, and to express the unfal- tering and immovable determination that the men whom the General Assembly had the audacity to elect, and whom a Republican governor has refused to commission, shall never administer so-called justice in the courts of South Caro- lina."
A great mass meeting was held in Charleston, December 29, 1875. The president of the meeting was George W. Williams, a member of the New England Society. Four of the vice-presidents of the meeting were also prominent members of the
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Society. In calling the meeting to order, Colonel B. H. Rutledge said:
"We are in the midst of a great crisis in our affairs. We have the safety of our property and our liberties and, it may be, our lives at stake. A blow has been aimed directly at the very center of our civilization. Our honor has been trampled into the very dust. Under these circumstances, it becomes us to consult together, and further to promulgate the result of our deliberations calmly, seriously, earnestly, resolutely. It is for this purpose that we are met here tonight, and it is proposed that this meeting organize immediately without further preliminaries under the following officers, taken from the most respectable, the most influential, and the most responsible of our fellow-citizens."
After the meeting was organized, General James Conner, one of the most distinguished citizens of the state, delivered the following address:
"I had hoped never again to make a political speech. It is foreign to my disposition and pur- suits; but there are occasions when private incli- nation must yield to public duty, when every citizen must consider the state first, and himself
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last; and this, in my judgment, is such an occasion. We are brought by recent events face to face with great issues. I am old enough to remember many eventful periods in the history of this state; but I can recall not one more momentous than the present.
"The question is not how you can live here; but whether you can live here at all. You have either to redeem the state or quit it. You must make a good government or they will make a Hayti. For one, I claim a heritage in the state, and I will not be driven from it! Since 1868 the Republican party has ruled the state; no such government has ever shocked the civilized world. No people has ever endured so much, so patiently, and so long. We have sought relief through con- ciliation and compromise; and I do not condemn it. I say it was well; for had it not been tried, there are those who would have said that it was the true remedy and sole panacea for all this. We have tried it and demonstrated by failure its utter inadequacy.
"When Governor Chamberlain stumped the state in the canvass for governor, he pledged him- self to reform and to lift from the Republican party of the nation and the state the odium and
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reproach of South Carolina politics. His party cheered him to the echo, and held him forth as their champion. But no sooner does he attempt to maintain his pledged faith and lift his party from the slough of corruption than they repudiate his counsels, defeat his plans, and crown their infamy by a degradation greater than any ever yet imposed. The election of Moses and Whipper was the legislative answer to his efforts to reform the party from within.
"All that now stands between us and the degradation of the bench is the wise and bold action of the Governor. He stands erect, bearing the wrath of his own party, to maintain unbroken his promise of reform. As he is true to his duty, let us be true to ours and stand firmly and unitedly by him in support of the right. It is the path of duty; it is the path of wisdom and safety."
The following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted by the meeting:
"We are assembled to confer upon a condition of affairs as grave as ever imperiled the peace and well-being of any community. The foundation of society is a pure judiciary, and its corruption or perversion to evil purposes destroys the last hope of securing to a people protection and liberty.
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"The action of the legislature in electing as judges W. J. Whipper and F. J. Moses, Jr., men whose proper place in a courthouse is the criminal's dock, is an insult to every honest citizen, and a violation of every safeguard which the law affords to life, liberty, and property.
"But this action is not in itself the full measure of the evil that confronts us. Bad as it is, its graver aspect is in what it signifies. We recognize in the recent judicial elections the ascendency and control of the worst element of the political party which governs the state. Actuated by a relentless hate based upon race, and stimulated by the pros- pect of 'plunder and revenge,' they have repudi- ated all restraint and inaugurated a policy which inevitably leads to the destruction of decent government, ruins the material interests of the state, and imperils our very civilization. Under such a condition of things, law ceases to protect and government itself becomes the oppressor.
"What shall we do to avert the destruction which must surely result from the consummation of the policy thus inaugurated ?
"Since 1868 the conservative citizens of this state have put aside party obligations and the hopes of party ascendency, have put no party
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ticket in the field, but have sought and hoped for peace stability and pure government through the Republican party. They have striven not to antagonize but to harmonize conflicting races, interests, and opinions, patiently waiting to obtain as the fruits of their forbearances the blessings of good government.
"In every form in which the effort could be made, it has been tried, and when, through the wise, firm, and patriotic administration of Gover- nor Chamberlain, the end seemed about to be obtained, a Republican Assembly impatiently resents his control, and with a recklessness born of ignorance and hate commits the state to a career destructive of its peace and fatal to its prosperity. The failure to obtain relief through the agency of the Republican party of the state is utter and hopeless. The responsibilities and obligations imposed upon us in this emergency must be fearlessly met.
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