Beaufort, South Carolina

“ Georgia's fourth exception concerns the islands in the Savannah River that came into existence after the States signed the Treaty of Beaufort in 1787. Agreeing with the Special Master, the Court finds these islands in South Carolina if they emerged on a portion of the riverbed belonging to South Carolina. Georgia contends that all islands formed by natural processes lie within its territory unless South Carolina has acquired them through prescription. ”

“ PORT ROYAL, an island in Beaufort county, South Carolina, U.S.A., at the head of Port Royal Sound, about 16 m. from the Atlantic coast, and about 50 m. S.W. of Charleston. It is about 13 m. long (north and south) by about 7 m. wide. The surface is generally flat, and there is much marshland in its southern part, and along its north-eastern shore. The principal settlement is Beaufort, a port of entry, and the county-seat of Beaufort county, on the Beaufort river (here navigable for vessels drawing 18 ft.) ”

“ The State, therefore, became an engine of political power, managed and worked by a few men from Charleston, Beaufort, St. Helena, Edisto, Colleton, and other parishes along the sea-coast.
Nature gave South Carolina sunny skies and a genial clime. The sea contributed an atmosphere which gained for Edisto and St. Helena islands the monopoly in the world's markets for cotton of finest fibre. Wealth increased with the gathering in of each new crop, and with wealth came additional power. ”

“ I would not be so foolish as to say that assaults upon white women may not take place anywhere, but as a matter of fact they seem to occur chiefly in those regions where white and black meet as competitors for ordinary labor. Beaufort County, South Carolina, has a black population forming about 90 per cent of the total, yet I was told last summer that but one case of rape had been known in the county, and that took place on the back edge of the county where there are fewest Negroes, and was committed by a non-resident black upon a non-resident white. ”

“ At the same time, he was desired to request their Lordships to augment their Secretary's salary, to allow the members of the council so much money for the time and expence of attending the council on their service; to establish custom-house officers at Beaufort; to grant six thousand acres of land to the three garrisons at Congarees, Savanna Town, and Apalachicola; and liberty of appealing from erroneous judgements in law, which at that time the people had not, the whole judicial power in all the provincial courts being lodged in the hands of one man. ”

“ Nowhere, even in South Carolina, was this feeling of hauteur so strong as in that portion of the State which we are describing. On the large plantations the owners ruled with power unlimited over life and property, and could a faithful record be found it would prove one of vindictive oppression, productive oftentimes of misery and bloodshed. Most of the wealthier planters in the district have residences at Beaufort, to which they remove during the summer months to escape the malaria arising from the soil around their inland houses. ”

“ ELLIOTT, Stephen, naturalist, b. in Beaufort, S. C., 11 Nov., 1771; d. in Charleston, S. C., 28 March, 1830. His father settled in Beaufort, where he purchased land, and married a granddaughter of John Barnwell. He was graduated at Yale in 1791, devoted himself to the cultivation of his estate and to literary and scientific studies, and in 1793 was elected to the legislature of South Carolina, of which he continued to be a member until the establishment of the Bank of the state in 1812, of which he was chosen president. He retained this office till his death. ”

“ The site thus chosen by Ribault for his colony, though no traces have been left of the labor of his hands, is scarcely doubtful to the present possessors of the country. All the proofs concur in placing Fort Charles somewhere between North Edisto and Broad River, and circumstances determine this situation to be that of the beautiful little town of Beaufort, in South Carolina. The Grande Riviere of the French is our Broad River. [6] It was at the mouth of this river, in an island with a safe and commodious port, that the fort was established ”

“ We honestly believe the true course to pursue with South Carolina, is to colonize her under the protection of our troops. Let us start with a settlement of Yankees at Beaufort, who shall addict themselves to the raising of cotton and other southern products. Let them employ the negroes whose masters have run away, and who are ipso facto free. As our army gradually extends its lines, let the northern pioneer proceed, to occupy and cultivate the soil. ”

“ The persecutions of the owner of Jehossee did not, however, terminate with the war; for when the struggle was virtually ended, and the fair mansion of the rice-plantation retained its heirlooms and its furniture, Beaufort, of South Carolina, was still under the influence of the Freedman's Bureau; and when it was whispered that Aiken's house was full of nice old furniture, and that a few faithful servants of the good old master were its only guards, covetous thoughts at once stirred the evil minds of those who were the representatives of law and order. ”

“ It has become a grave question for determination what shall be done with the Slaves abandoned by their owners on the advance of our troops into Southern territory, as in the Beaufort district of South Carolina. The whole White population therein is six thousand, while the number of Negroes exceeds thirty-two thousand. The panic which drove their masters in wild confusion from their homes, leaves them in undisputed possession of the soil. ”

“ It is probably the first time that the slaves—contrabands—freedmen—have asserted themselves our fellow-countrymen by claiming the right of voting. A meeting was called in Beaufort to elect delegates to the Baltimore convention. [163] It was assumed that we could stand for the sovereign state of South Carolina, and so we sent her full complement of sixteen representatives, [Pg 268] and furnished each with an alternate. There are hardly thirty-two decent men in the Department, it is commonly believed. ”

“ This first delegation of superintendents and teachers were distributed during the first fortnight after their arrival at Beaufort, and at its close they had all reached their appointed posts. They took their quarters in the deserted houses of the planters. These had all left on the arrival of our army, only four white men, citizens of South Carolina, remaining, and none of those being slaveholders, except one, who had only two or three slaves. Our operations were, therefore, not interfered with by landed proprietors who were loyal or pretended to be so. ”

“ When the Revolution broke out, he was among the earliest in South Carolina to take the field on the Republican side. His defense of the fort on Sullivan's Island in 1776. gave him great eclat, and he was promoted to brigadier. He gained a battle over the British near Beaufort in 1779, and in May, 1780, was second in command when Charleston was besieged. He went to Philadelphia while a prisoner of war, and did not return to South Carolina until 1782. He was several times chosen governor of the state, and retired from public life only when the infirmities of age demanded repose. ”

“ The man that would refuse to take the field in defence of these hereditary possessions, is regarded by them as a coward, and treated as an outcast from their nation. To the over-hill villages the French had an easy access by means of rivers that emptied themselves into the Ohio and Mississippi. Their middle settlements and towns in the valley lay more convenient for trading with the Carolineans. ”

“ In Virginia especially the proclamation has wakened the people from their trance, and they are holding meetings in the counties, with the rallying cry of '98....My private advices are of the most cheering character; they assure me that whatever the legislature may do, it will be believed the temper of the people. They tell me that it is only necessary for us to present a determined front, and all will be well. We have compelled a more rapid course of thought than twenty years of discussion would have produced. ”

“ Here is room in South Carolina alone for all of New England, and in no State could the spirit of New England work such marvels. But so long as the fogs of slavery and misgovernment and ostracism and social hatred hang over them like the malaria of their own rice lowlands, so long South Carolina will be a prostrate State, crying for sympathy and help. Let us trust that the time has come for the people to help themselves, and in doing so, raise their Commonwealth to a pinacle of grandeur and prosperity such as even its proud history has never known. ”

“ South Carolina must be a devil of a State: every thing seems captivated with its greatness: I'd like to live in Carolina if I didn't get licked.”
“By scissors! that you would, Captain; you ha'n't an idee what a mighty site our people can do if they're a mind to! All South Carolina wants is her constitutional rights, which her great men fought for in the Revolution. We want the freedom to protect our own rights and institutions—not to be insulted and robbed by the General Government and the abolitionists.” ”

“ Well, none of this being disputed, we ask the Mercury at what time did the sovereignty of South Carolina annul the oath in the Constitution of the United States by which it bound all its agents to observe that fundamental law, anything in the laws and constitution of a state to the contrary notwithstanding. It being not disputed that that great law remains unabrogated and the oath referred to unrepealed by any act of the sovereignty of South Carolina, we demand if the proceedings of a convention are of higher authority to the judges than the proceedings of a legislature. ”

“ Society must manage to get on without the Beauforts, and there was an end of it—except indeed for such hapless victims of the disaster as Medora Manson, the poor old Miss Lannings, and certain other misguided ladies of good family who, if only they had listened to Mr. Henry van der Luyden ...
"The best thing the Beauforts can do," said Mrs. Archer, summing it up as if she were pronouncing a diagnosis and prescribing a course of treatment, "is to go and live at Regina's little place in North Carolina. Beaufort has always kept a racing stable, and he had better breed trotting horses. ”

“ With South Carolinians, nothing is done in South Carolina that is not greater than ever was done in the United States-no battles were ever fought that South Carolina did not win-no statesman was ever equal to Mr. Calhoun-no confederacy would be equal to the Southern, with South Carolina at its head-no political doctrines contain so much vital element as secession, and no society in the Union is equal to South Carolina for caste and elegance-not excepting the worthy and learned aristocracy of Boston. ”

“ But was it not enough to make them pause and reflect when Judge Daniel E. Huger, Judge William Smith, Colonel William Drayton, Judge J. P. Richardson, Chancellor Desaussure, Judge David Johnson, Judge William Johnson, Judge J. B. O'Neall, Judge Lee, Governor Richard I. Manning, Governor Bennett, Colonel Taylor, Joel R. Poinsett, James L. Petigru, Hugh S. Legaré, and many others, distinguished alike for their virtues, talents, patriotism, and public services, not only regarded them as dangerous political heresies, but as the very seeds of disunion, discord, and revolution? ”

“ At this very moment, Sir, the whole land smiles in peace, and rejoices in plenty. A general and a high prosperity pervades the country; and, judging by the common standard, by increase of population and wealth, or judging by the opinions of that portion of her people not embarked in these dangerous and desperate measures, this prosperity overspreads South Carolina herself.
Thus happy at home, our country, at the same time, holds high the character of her institutions, her power, her rapid growth, and her future destiny, in the eyes of all foreign states. One danger only creates hesitation ”

“ Not we, not we, are responsible for what happens in South Carolina between the slaves and their masters. Our business is to save the Union; to re-establish the authority of the Union over the rebels in South Carolina; and, if between the masters and their slaves collisions arise, the responsibility is upon those masters who, forgetting their allegiance to the Government, lent themselves to this foul conspiracy, and thus have been involved in ruin. As a warning, let South Carolina be the first of the States of the Republic in which emancipation to the enslaved is proclaimed. ”

“ South Carolina has three hundred thousand white inhabitants, disloyal, who have done all in their power to overthrow and destroy the Government, and yet, sir, under the Constitution as it now stands, the three hundred thousand disloyal white inhabitants of South Carolina will exercise as much political power in the Government as the eight hundred thousand loyal people of the State of Wisconsin. ”

“ The idea of free society, of which New England is the foremost representative, is gradually subduing every region of these eighteen states to itself.
And just as the New England idea, organized in the great Middle States and the Northwest, is approaching its day of conquest in the North, is the idea of South Carolina subduing the fifteen Southern States. South Carolina is now the most completely aristocratic State in the Confederacy. Fifty-eight per cent of her entire population are slaves. Her basis of representation in her Legislature is equally slave property and white population ”