Charles C. Nott

“ Her front is white with foam, and every look shows that she deems the head of the column her proper place. Whenever any horse has come within a respectful distance, Gipsy's heels have flown higher than his head, admonishing him, that whatever happens, she must be first. But the road, which has followed the bank, now crosses the brook. There is no friendly bridge to lift us over—the road leads down the bank, straight into the water. That water is wider than Sixth Avenue, and the recent rain has made it a roaring torrent—no one knows how deep, and it splashes and dashes fearfully. ”

“ She bounds past, the airs and graces fly back as swiftly as they flew away; and in five minutes she is as vain a little Gipsy as ever she was before.
But it is one o'clock—horses and men are hungry, and just beyond us is a house. We see chickens, cows, sheep and pigs, but no smoke rises from the chimney. We halt; the sergeant enters the open door; comes back and reports it just what we want—a deserted house. In a few minutes the horses are unsaddled and tied to the fence, munching the corn we find in two large cribs. ”

“ Through the wide field of State and Federal relations, through State constitutions and the Articles of Confederation the framer needed to search, weighing State prejudices and national necessities, taking what was desirable, but with equal care leaving what was objectionable. There were not five men in the world working in each other's way, discussing each other's work, who, unassisted, could have drawn up a constitution in which so much was embodied and so little overlooked and have brought their patchwork contributions into one harmonious whole within the time prescribed. ”

“ Down a deep ravine behind the house is a beautiful spring. Gigantic oaks rise over it, and the water flows from a bank of fine, white sand—so fine and white that it seems an alabaster fountain. Here I unroll my towel and make my toilet, and then climb the hill for breakfast, which is ready.
This duty done, we resume the march. I am ordered not to enter Paris, and, therefore, turn off and strike across the country, to regain the direct road from Paris to the Holly Fork. A very blind road it is, winding through woods, and frequently lost. ”

“ In the federal councils, each State ought to have a weight in proportion to its importance; and no State is justly entitled to greater. A representation is a sign of the reality. Upon this principle, however abused, the Parliament of Great Britain is formed, and it had been universally adopted by the States in the formation of their legislatures."
"In the Parliament of Great Britain as well as in most and the best instituted legislatures of the States, we find not only two branches, but in some a council of revision, consisting of their executive and principal officers of government. ”

“ From New York to Fort Henry might once have been an interesting journey, but campaigning has robbed travelling of its charm, and henceforth I fear it will be but dull work for me. The railroad bore me swiftly to the mouth of the Ohio; I have looked again on Cairo in its dirt and mud, Paducah with its dusty streets and hospitals, and now I am on the banks of the Tennessee. ”

“ The idea which has been so long and falsely entertained of each being a sovereign State, must be given up; for it is absurd to suppose there can be more than one sovereignty within a government. The States should retain nothing more than that mere local legislation, which, as districts of a general government, they can exercise more to the benefit of their particular inhabitants, than if it was vested in a Supreme Council ”

“ On the summit of a long hill is a farm house, and as we thus approached it on a gallop, I saw a group of men, and rows of cavalry horses tied to the fences. For a moment I thought my pursuit was over, but a closer glance through the dim twilight told me these were too few for the squadron—it was the picket guard taking their last rest before going out on their posts for the night. "Your men are about two miles ahead of you, captain," said the officer of the picket, and we rode on. ”

“ My slowly formed conclusion is that if wise and judicious forethought, and much patient work well done, and a breadth of view commensurate with the greatness of the subject, and the production at a critical moment of a paper which all other men in or out of the Convention had neglected to prepare, entitle a man to the lasting recognition of his countrymen, there is no framer of the Constitution more entitled to be commemorated in bronze or marble than Charles Pinckney of South Carolina. ”

“ But at length we remember the hospital tent, and the hospital steward produces a piece of white something from his stores, which is bound around a stick and made into a flag.
Under circumstances such as these, the doctor climbs into the ambulance, I mount my horse, and we start. The rain somewhat abates, and diminishes to a drizzle, which is a great relief; but the ambulance drags along snail-like through the mud. We, who are mounted, do not ride faster than a walk, yet repeatedly have to wait, and watch it crawling after us among the trees. ”

“ Conquests or superiority among other powers is not, or ought not ever to be, the object of republican systems. If they are sufficiently active and energetic to rescue us from contempt, and preserve our domestic happiness and security, it is all we can expect from them—it is more than almost any other government insures to its citizens."
Pinckney's experience in the Congress of the Confederation made him despise the existing Federal Government and undervalue the local authority of the States. He came into the Convention its most extreme Federalist—more so even than Hamilton. ”

“ It is three in the morning, and the men have left their cavalry couches, and are silently rolling their blankets and saddling their horses. We leave the field as we entered it, replacing the fence and turning toward Buena Vista. How surprised the owner will be when, harvesting his corn, he stumbles on the traces of our mysterious bivouac. The country still sleeps in the chill, silent moonlight, and very chilly and silent are we; but by and by the day breaks, and, as the sun rises, we descend into the dark, damp valley of the Obion. ”

“ For more than 100 years the American people have kept the cardinal idea of these youthful statesmen buried from sight or contemplation as something impractical or dangerous but they are now beginning to ask themselves whether an overwhelming national government is not the better agency for the control and management of their modern, complex, national life.
Considering that Madison and Pinckney worked in such different fields, the abstract and the concrete, it is remarkable that the work of the one repeatedly and constantly agrees with the work of the other. ”

“ When I am riding alone, Gipsy generally does pretty much as she pleases—now trotting, now cantering, now dashing up hill on a gallop, her ears always pricked up, and her bright eyes examining every object on the road. When we come suddenly out of the woods upon a fine prospect, Gipsy stops and looks it over, with as much interest as though she were a landscape painter. If we come to a narrow stream, Gipsy (who greatly dislikes to wet her feet) stops again, looks deliberately up and down, selects the narrowest place, and then, without asking anybody's leave, proceeds there and bounds over. ”

“ Let the reader imagine, if he can, what would be the public feeling now, if a convention should be sitting from the 29th of May to [Pg 229] the 17th of September to frame a new constitution for the United States which should sit with closed doors, and whose members should disclose no act, speak no word, drop no hint from the beginning to the end; and who, when the end was reached, should say absolutely nothing of what had been said and done in the secret proceedings of the Convention. We owe much to the framers of the Constitution; they were not common men. ”

“ Twice I take out my knife and meditate the last resort, and twice my hand is stayed by the thought that there may be no shoemaker in all Tennessee. It grows later and lighter, and I shall miss the morning roll-call for the first time since I have been in service. But the colonel saves me from breaking my rule. He thinks it too bad to make the men stand out in the wet, and has ordered the buglers not to sound the reveille. While resting, I betake myself to the goose—now truly a waterfowl and wetter than he ever was in his life—and manage to breakfast between the struggles. ”

“ To allow a document which was placed in the files of the Government at the instance of a high officer of State to be attacked and discredited because of the doubts and suspicions of individuals, no matter how eminent and intelligent, would be a monstrous abuse of authority which can not be upheld in either law or morals. ”

“ Many talked to me of the danger of the cavalry service—only one ever named this other word, which is much the heavier. The men have no responsibility, and are at rest; the sergeant, lately so anxious, has made his report, performed his duty, and has no more responsibility: he now sleeps as soundly as the others.
The man on guard will be relieved of his in an hour or two, and he will lie down and slumber too. But I hear the distant barking of dogs, and start up at the sound, for we have learnt to observe the movements of our own cavalry at night by this sign. ”

“ The country was well filled with men of talents, of ability, of energy, of patriotic fervor, with men who knew the conditions of our national affairs, [Pg 249] the difficulties of acting, the perils of inaction, and yet the fact, undeniable, is that only one man foresaw the coming necessity of the situation and had the forethought to prepare a draught of the Constitution for the use of the Convention. ”

“ The sky is black as ink—the darkness is such that we can see nothing but the half-burnt brands of the fires. The wind howls through the trees like a pack of wolves, and scatters our fires so that the coals fly over our heads, and fall on our blankets and beds. The rain is not come yet, but is coming—we shall be drenched, and then have to sit up in the darkness and shiver till daylight. ”

“ Madison seconded the motion. He could not but regard an indefinite power to negative legislative acts of the States as absolutely necessary to a perfect System. Experience had evinced a constant tendency in the States to encroach on the federal authority; to violate national Treaties; to infringe the rights and interests of each other; to oppress the weaker party within their respective jurisdictions. ”

“ Soon Bischoff leads his horse and mine up to the tent, and soon after the first sergeant reports all ready. The men are drawn up in line; they "count off by fours;" the order is given, "by two's to the right," and we are marching slowly over the high hills and through the tall oaks which belt the Tennessee.
Though it is a March morning, the air is as soft and balmy as it will be in New York next May; and in the distance, the opening buds throw a mist-like haze over the forests. Here and there a crow starts from some tall tree, and caws familiarly as he flies away ”

“ It seemed then a growing menace to the rights of the South and the sovereignty of South Carolina. For Pinckney to have asserted publicly that he was the chief author of the instrument and of its most offensive provisions would have inclined his fellow citizens in Charleston to say that instead of boasting of his work he ought to be ashamed of it; that where State rights were involved it was at best ambiguous; and that, if he was the author of the draught, he more than any other man had enabled the judges to interpret the Constitution in favor of Federal supremacy. ”

“ I say to the other, "if you hear any alarm, and when it is time to relieve guard." "Yes, sir:" and I lie down. I unclasp my belt, and draw my sabre and pistol close beside me. You do not know how much like friends they seem. The corn leaves feel cold and damp; the night is dark; and the wind wails mournfully. I draw my buffalo close, and wish I were warm and asleep. For a moment I raise my head, for up the road I hear the tramp of horses. It is slow and regular; the sergeant returning with the men on picket. They come in, fasten their horses, and lie down under their blankets ”

“ The preamble is the first and chief sentence in the Constitution; for it declares the source and supremacy of its authority. "We the people of the United States" "do ordain, declare and establish this Constitution." The preamble goes behind State governments, asking nothing from them, either of authority or consent, and invokes the power which established them, the people of the United States. ”

“ It is a pleasant Spring morning, and I am ordered to take my company and "scout to and beyond Conyersville, with two days' rations." There is a stir and bustle through our tents, and great delight at the thought of going out. Some are bringing up horses from the picket ropes; others are rolling blankets, and strapping them behind the saddles; others are packing away coffee, pork and hard biscuit in a pair of rude saddle-bags, which we have made from an old tent, and now carry on a led horse. ”

“ When Pinckney, foreseeing that a national Convention would be held and that if it failed to frame a constitution which would give to the waning Confederation the character and authority of nationality, the nationality of the Confederated States might disappear, he resolutely assigned to himself the task of framing one in which nationality should be secure and a national government above and independent of the States be the result. ”

“ I said I thought bringing fifty men into a private house to dinner, and that on Sunday, was a little too much; but she said quite earnestly that she could do nothing better on Sunday than care for Union soldiers. Soon one man, and then another, came in, whose looks more than their words assured us of a warm and living patriotism to which we had long been strangers. From them I learnt that there were many more hiding in the surrounding woods, and that a party of rebel citizens had recently been amusing themselves by arresting Union men, and sending them off to Memphis. ”

“ Pinckney had been a Senator of the United States, Governor of South Carolina, Minister to Spain and had just been elected to the important Congress which was to grapple with the National questions involved in the Missouri Compromise. He may have been a vain man as Madison thought him— (most men of great ability and prominence are egotistical; it is egotism ordinarily which impels them to the front) but no one has intimated that Pinckney could have been guilty of an act which from moral and historical points of view was little better than a crime. ”

“ There is no light umbrella, nor rattling omnibus in camp; nor dry stockings, nor warm fire to find, at home. The tents are tired of shedding rain, and it oozes through; there were no spades to trench them, and it runs under. There is water above, and mud beneath, and wet everywhere. No fun in soldiering now.
An officer says, "Captain, you will report immediately for orders." So I wrap my blanket round me, and toil over to the colonel's tent. The colonel is a young man, but an old soldier, and has the only fire in camp. ”