USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 16
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1 See these quotations collected and cited by Mr. Sabine. The Ameri- can Loyalists, 67, 68.
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embrace it. I profess of the latter number, in exclusion of the former. I am convinced America is not in such a situation as to entitle her to consider it as a just object of ambition, and I have no idea of a people forming a constitution from revenge. A just and constitutional con- nection with Great Britain (if such could be obtained) I still think, in spite of every provocation, would be happier for America for a con- siderable time to come than absolute independence." 1
Mr. Sabine in his work on the American Loyalists shows conclusively that the impression that Whigs proposed, and the Tories opposed, independence at the commencement of the controversy is entirely erroneous; that the con- troversy had been going on quite fourteen years before the question of independence was made a party issue, and even then necessity not choice caused a dismemberment of the empire.2 Of this necessity the people of South Carolina generally were not yet convinced, nor indeed were they prepared to go to this length to redress grievances which were in the main to them purely theoretical.
When, therefore, the delegates from Virginia on the 7th of June, 1776, moved in obedience to instructions from their constituents that the Congress should declare that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent States; that they absolve all alle- giance to the British Crown, and that all political connec- tion between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved, Edward Rutledge, the only one of the original delegation from South Carolina then in Congress, joined John Dickinson and James Wil- son of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York in opposing the resolution. These delegates de- clared that though they were friends to the measure
1 Life and Correspondence of James Iredell, vol. I, 321, 322.
2 The American Loyalists (Lorenzo Sabine), 69.
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themselves, and saw the impossibility that they should ever again be united with Great Britain, yet they were against adopting them at that time. That it was wise and proper to defer taking so decisive a step till the voice of the people drove them into it. That the people were the power, and without them these declarations could not be carried into effect. That besides South Carolina the people of the Middle colonies - Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York - were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to British connection. That the resolution entered into on the 15th of May, for suppress- ing the exercise of all powers derived from the Crown, had shown by the ferment into which it had thrown the Middle colonies that they had not yet accommodated their
minds to a separation from the mother country.
That
some of them had expressly forbidden their delegates to consent to such a declaration, and others had given no instructions, and consequently their delegates had no powers to give such consent. These and other reasons were urged against the resolution of independence. On the other hand, John Adams of Massachusetts, George Wythe and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, urged that the question was not whether by a declaration of inde- pendence they should make themselves what they were not, but whether they should declare a fact which already existed ; that as to the people or Parliament of England they had always been independent of them, these re- straints upon the trade of America deriving efficacy from acquiescence only, and not from any rights Parliament possessed of imposing them ; that all connection had been dissolved by the commencement of hostilities; that they had been bound to the King by allegiance, but that the bond was now dissolved by his assent to the late act of Parliament by which he declared the colonists out of his
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protection; that the people waited for the Congress to lead the way.1
These debates clearly showing that the colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina were not yet ready for the declara- tion, it was thought most prudent to wait awhile for them and to postpone the final decision to July the 1st; but in the meanwhile a committee was appointed to prepare a declaration of independence.2
On Friday, the 28th day of June, the day upon which the first decisive victory was gained by American arms in the struggle with the mother country, that of the battle of Fort Moultrie in Charlestown harbor, Thomas Jeffer- son from the committee appointed for the purpose reported his draft of a declaration of independence. It was read and ordered to lie on the table. On Monday the 1st of July the House resolved itself into a committee of the whole and resumed the consideration of the original mo- tion made by the delegate from Virginia. The debate was carried on throughout the day. The delegates from New York declared that while they were for the declara- tion themselves and were assured that so also were their constituents, that their instructions having been drawn near a twelvemonth before when reconciliation was still the general object, they were enjoined to do nothing which should prevent it. They therefore thought themselves not justified in voting on either side, and asked leave to withdraw from the question, which was given them. The vote was then taken, when New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia voted
1 Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. I, 10; Elliot's Debates on the Constitution, vol. I, 84-88.
2 Ibid.
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for the Virginia resolution, that the Congress should declare that the colonies were, and of right ought to be, free and independent States. Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted against it, and as the two delegates from Delaware were divided, that vote was not counted upon either side. The vote of the delegates from Georgia was for the declaration, but the delegation from that colony represented few but themselves ; Georgia was the young- est, the weakest, and the most loyal of all the colonies. The committees of the whole rose and reported their reso- lution to the House. Before action was taken, however, by the House in open Congress, Mr. Edward Rutledge rose and requested that the determination might be put off to the next day, as he believed his colleagues, though they disapproved of the resolution, would then join it for the sake of unanimity. This was agreed to, and the vote was accordingly postponed to the next day.1
And so it happened that on the 28th day of June, 1776, the destiny of South Carolina was in the hands of two men widely separated from each other, - brothers - John and Edward Rutledge, - one at home assuming the responsi- bility and forcing the issue of battle with the British fleet and army, and obtaining the first great victory of this war ; the other at Philadelphia assuming the responsibility of committing his people to a policy which they had not approved, and thus securing the union of the colonies in the Declaration of Independence.
The delegation from South Carolina were certainly in an embarrassing position. South Carolina they knew had joined in the movement from the first more because of sympathy with the New England colonies because of their treatment by Great Britain than from any actual pressure
1 Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. I, 10; Elliot's Debates on the Constitution, vol. I, 88, 89.
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of hardship and wrong upon the colony itself. The pres- ent government in England had grossly abused the ap- pointing power, and had refused to allow the necessary courts for the increased population of the colony until it had bought off the patent office-holders who had been so unworthily forced upon their people. But these were local grievances which the Congress in all their discus- sions had not thought worthy of enumeration in the wrongs of which they were complaining ; and which, indeed, were so in accordance with the spirit of the times as scarcely to be urged by the Carolinians themselves. Then, too, these troubles were of a character which they hoped could be remedied by a change in the ministry without resort to the extreme remedy of revolution. The stern and cruel commercial code which was at the bottom of all the trouble was not felt practically in South Carolina, though rice was one of the enumerated articles. The people, as we have seen, were planters and not sailors, and were content that the mother country should have the carrying of their produce. The merchants of South Caro- lina, unlike those of the Northern colonies, were almost to a man opposed to revolution. Again, the people of South Carolina had been forced to realize in the outset that though they might be led into a war from sympathy with the wrongs of the Northern colonies, those colonies were too far distant to assist them in return. The troops of the Northern colonies had joined the Virginians in Brad- dock's campaign, and those of Virginia and the Middle colonies were now under Washington before Boston. South Carolina had been left to her own resources for defence against the Spaniards and Indians, and now while her delegates did not know of the victory of Fort Sulli- van, they did know that South Carolina was left to meet the grand naval and military expedition that had sailed to
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attack Charlestown as best she might with the assistance only of North Carolina, and possibly of some few troops from Virginia. But more than all this Middleton and Heyward and the younger Lynch had just come from home, where they had heard Gadsden's avowal of his de- sire for independence, and had witnessed the excitement which that declaration had aroused. They had heard the new Constitution discussed, and knew that Gadsden's policy had been expressly repudiated in its preamble. Arthur Middleton himself, it is true, had been a leader of the extreme party in South Carolina, but as such he prob- ably best realized how weak it was in numbers. Thomas Heyward, Jr., had been sent with Middleton, and Hey- ward had always belonged to the moderate party. Thomas Lynch, Jr., had still more lately joined them, and now, no doubt, like his father, was influenced by the conservative element in Philadelphia. The active delegation from South Carolina was thus composed of a younger set. Middleton, the eldest of them, was but thirty-three years of age, Heyward but thirty, and Rutledge and Lynch were but twenty-seven. The delegation together aver- aged but little over twenty-nine years. It has been said that in South Carolina generally the fathers were Tories and the sons were Whigs. It is more than likely that both the elder Middleton and Lynch were glad to leave to their sons the severance of ties which were still almost sacred to them.
When, however, the Congress met on the 2d of July, and the question was again submitted whether it would declare the independence of the colonies, Middleton, Hey- ward, and Lynch had, under Edward Rutledge's influence, agreed to brave the consequences at home and to vote for the Virginia resolutions in order to preserve unity among the colonies. Fortunately for them an event had taken
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place there which had vastly changed the condition of parties and affairs. The war had actually begun, a battle had been fought, a British fleet had been repulsed, a British army held in check, and a victory won in Charles- town harbor, before the news of their action in Congress had been known to these people. On this day, too, a third member had come post from the Delaware counties and turned the vote of that colony in favor of the Decla- ration. Pennsylvania also changed her vote, and twelve colonies agreed to the Virginia resolutions. The draft
of the Declaration was then discussed on the 2d, 3d, and 4th days of July, and on the evening of the last day, the 4th, settled, agreed to in the committee of the whole, and immediately reported and adopted in open Congress. On the 9th of July the convention in New York approved it, and the Declaration of Independence was then agreed to by all the thirteen colonies.
Thus it was, as Ramsay says, that the people of South Carolina without any original design on their part were step by step drawn into revolution and war, which involved them in every species of difficulty and finally dissevered them from the mother country. It so hap- pened that while on the 28th of June John Rutledge was defying the combined army and fleet of his Majesty the King of England in the harbor of Charlestown, Edward Rutledge, now at the head of the delegation in Congress at Philadelphia, was hesitating to commit South Carolina to a declaration of independence. And yet John Rut- ledge had been for a reconciliation with the Crown ; while Edward Rutledge had, from the commencement of the difficulties, inclined to Gadsden's extreme measures rather than to the prudent course of the moderates led by his brother. At the moment when Thomas Jefferson rose in Congress and presented his draft of the Declaration of
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Independence, Sir Peter Parker was pouring his broad- sides into the little palmetto fort on Sullivan's Island. Was it to await the issue of the battle that then was rag- ing in Charlestown harbor, that some unseen spirit induced the Congress, all unconsciously, to pause and to lay for the time this proposed Declaration of Independence upon the table ? This we cannot know; but so it was that, at the very time while Edward Rutledge was signing the Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia, John Rutledge was ad- dressing the garrison at Fort Moultrie, thanking them for their gallant conduct, and presenting his own sword to Sergeant Jasper as a reward for his bravery.
It was, however, with grave misgivings that the delega- tion from South Carolina - not yet informed of the re- sult of the expedition of the British fleet to Charlestown- attached their signatures to that document. But as John Adams clearly saw, a declaration of independence was merely a formal statement of a condition of things which already existed. All impatient himself for such a declara- tion, he wrote to his wife : -
" As to declarations of independency be patient. Read our priva- teering laws and commercial laws. What signifies a word? When the thirteen colonies had, by their delegates in Congress, undertaken to regulate commerce ; had issued commissions to privateers to prey upon British commerce ; had declared that all persons abiding within any of the United colonies owed allegiance to such colony; had enacted that any such who should levy war against the colonies or adhere to the King of Great Britain or other enemies of the colo- nies, should be deemed guilty of treason against such colony; when they had organized armies and appointed Generals for the avowed purpose of resisting his Majesty's, the King of Great Britain's, forces. - they had already exercised the highest rights of Sovereignty, and of free and independent States."
Nevertheless, such was the strength of the olden ties ; and in South Carolina, at least, so strong was the love for
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the old country, so great was the pride of being a part of the British dominion, and entitled to the glories of her history, that many shrank from an explicit recognition and declaration of the fact that the colonies were indeed independent States, no longer a part of the old country.
It was with such divided feelings that thousands of the citizens of Charlestown looked on the battle as it raged within full view from the houses on the bay ; their hearts beating with alternate hopes and fears as the fortunes of the day wavered before them. Each broadside of the Bristol or the Experiment as it shook the little fort told with still greater effect upon their strained nerves as they watched through the rifted clouds of battle smoke to see if the blue flag with " Liberty " upon it still floated in the breeze. The die was indeed cast. Defeat might now not only end in storm and pillage and plunder, but in degrading punishment or ignominious death to their fathers, brothers, and husbands who should survive. Victory, on the other hand, was but the commencement of a long war, the experiment of a form of government which was new and untried, and for which but few were pre- pared. With these anxious thoughts the people crowded the wharves and sea front of the town, looking on until night had drawn its curtains over the scene, and hid the contending forces. Then they could only look for the flashes through the darkness, and listen to hear the peals like thunder which might be death knells to many friends. So they waited and watched and listened late into the night, until the British fleet gave up the contest. But the battle was over ; and the blue flag with " Liberty " on it still waved the next morning from the sponge staff on the merlon where Jasper had placed it. For some days the crippled fleet lay in the harbor, too much
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injured to renew the fight or go to sea. Nor had they yet all disappeared over the bar when came the news that the Declaration of Independence had been adopted in Congress and signed by the delegates from South Carolina.
About ten days after the action a number of the enemy's transports received from Long Island the troops which had found no laurels upon its sandy hills, and at the same time some of the frigates and armed vessels went over the bar. On the 14th of July the Bristol made an attempt to cross, but struck. She was got off, however, at length with difficulty but without injury. The transports with the Solebay, Thunder bombship, Friendship, and some of the small vessels sailed on the 21st of July. On the same day a brigantine mounting six four-pounders, and having on board fifty soldiers and six sailors, got aground near Dewees' Inlet and was captured. On the 25th of July the Experiment went over the bar and the next morning sailed, and two days after the Syren followed. On the 2d of August the Active, Sphinx, and a large transport went out to sea, leaving South Carolina and its coast once more clear.1
Though in 1775 the news of the battle of Lexington had reached Charlestown in seventeen days, Wells in the Gazette of the 1st of September, 1776, complains that while an express sometimes came through from Philadelphia in sixteen days, the post generally took double that time; and so it was on the 2d of August, the very day when the last of the British fleet went to sea from Charlestown harbor, an express arrived bringing the first news of the Declaration of Independence. But it must be said that the delegates in Congress from South Carolina had not been in any hurry to inform their constituents of their
1 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. II, 207, 208. VOL. III. - N
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action. Indeed, it was not until the 9th of July that they seem to have found courage to write to President Rutledge upon the subject, and even then as if fearing and reluctant to mention it they begin their communica- tion by saying they enclose certain resolutions of the Congress respecting the provincial forces which they wish may be agreeable to his Excellency, to the Assembly, and to the officers of the army and navy.
" Enclosed also," they write, " are some of the occasional resolutions and a very important Declaration which the King of Great Britain has at last reduced us to the necessity of making. All the colonies were united upon this great subject except New York, whose delegates were restrained by an instruction given several months ago. Their convention is to meet in a few days, when it expected that instruction will be immediately withdrawn and the Declaration unanimously agreed to by the Thirteen United States of America."
The letter then continued with other matters of ordi- nary interest. Thus, parenthetically, was this momen- tous action on their part announced. Thomas Lynch the elder, who was still in Philadelphia suffering from the paralytic affection with which he had been stricken, as if to countenance and support the action which the young men had taken, joins them in signing this communication, thus lending his weight and influence to secure the ap- proval of their course.1 Fortunately for its reception, too, the battle of the 28th of June had taken place, and com- mitted many to a line of conduct into which they would not otherwise have entered.
The Declaration of Independence, says Drayton, was received in Charlestown with the greatest joy, and on the 5th of August independency was declared by the civil authority ; the President, accompanied by all the officers,
1 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. II, 314, 315; Journal of the Congress.
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civil and military, making a grand procession in honor of the event. In the afternoon, in pursuance of general orders, the whole of the troops then in Charlestown, as well continental as provincial, were paraded near the Liberty Tree, where the Declaration was read by Major Barnard Elliott, - the same who had only left the King's Council a little more than a year before, -and an ad- dress was made by the Rev. William Percy.1 But the joy with which the Declaration was received was by no means universal. Mr. Henry Laurens, when a prisoner in the Tower of London, wrote to a friend thus describing his feelings at the time : -
" When intelligence of that event reached Charlestown where I was, I was called upon to join in a procession for promulgating the Decla- ration. I happened to be in mourning, and in that garb I attended the solemn and, as I felt it, awful renunciation of an union which I, at the hazard of my life and reputation, most earnestly strove to con- serve and support. In truth, I wept that day, as I had done for the melancholy catastrophe which caused me to put on black clothes - the death of a son - and felt much more pain. I thought and openly declared that, in my private opinion, Congress had been too hasty in shutting the door against reconciliation, but I did not know at that moment that Great Britain had first drawn the line of separation by the act of Parliament which threw the resisting colonies out of her protection, and forced them into a state of independence. . .. When I was informed of the line of separation above alluded to, I perceived the ground on which Congress had founded their Declaration, and sub- mitted to the unavoidable act." 2
President Rutledge at once issued a proclamation re- quiring the Legislative Council and General Assembly to meet at Charlestown on Tuesday, the 17th of September. This body, elected in August, 1775, he now called together to lay before it the Declaration of Independence, which
1 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. II, 315.
2 Coll. of the Hist. Soc. of So. Ca., vol. I, 69, 70.
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the delegation from South Carolina had signed with so much hesitation, and communicated with so little exul- tation.
And now that the Assembly had met, the President appears to have been as reluctant to plunge into the matter about which he had summoned it as the delegates had been in communicating it. He, however, had some- thing more appropriate with which to introduce the sub- ject than the "occasional resolutions" with which the delegates had sent the Declaration. It was but fit and proper that he should congratulate the Assembly on the heroic conduct of the brave men who had repelled the formidable British armament from Charlestown harbor, and he had also to tell them of the signal success of oper- ations against the Cherokees of which we must directly tell.
"Since your last meeting," he then proceeds, "the Continental Congress have declared the United Colonies Free and Independent States, absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and the political connection between them and Great Britain totally dissolved, an event which necessity rendered not only justifiable, but unavoid- able. This Declaration and several Resolves of that honorable body received during your recess shall be laid before you. I doubt not you will take such measures as may be requisite in consequence of them."
To this address the Legislative Council answered his Excellency that the Declaration of the Continental Con- gress called forth all their attention.
"It is an event," they too said, " which necessity had rendered not only justifiable, but absolutely unavoidable. It is a decree now worthy of America. We thankfully receive the notification of and rejoice at it; and we are determined at every hazard to endeavor to maintain it, so that after we have departed our children and their latest posterity may have cause to bless our memory."
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The President replied, " Your determination to endeavor to maintain the independence of the United States at every hazard proves that you know the value and are deserving of those rights for which America contends."
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