Carolinians

“ In short, the British were a handful of hawks; the poor Carolinians a swarm of rice-birds, and rather than be plucked to the pin feather, or picked to the bone, they and their little ones, they were fain to flatter those furious falcons, and oft times to chirp and sing when they were much in the humor to hate and curse.
Oh! blind indeed, and doubly blind is that people, and well worthy of iron yokes, who, enjoying all the sweets of liberty, in a land of milk and honey, can expose to foreign Philistines, that blessed Canaan, unguarded by Military science. ”

“ As a people the South Carolinians are brave and generous in certain directions. In their cities there is great culture, and many of the citizens are persons of refinement, education and taste. The educated classes are well versed in the history of our country, and many have an intimate knowledge of the varied story of political parties. But from the lowest to the highest classes of the white population there is an instinctive dread of the negro and an utter abhorrence of any doctrine which argues an ultimate improvement of his condition beyond that of the merest chattel laborer. ”

“ I do not observe much difference between the North and South Carolinians, except in the case of those who inhabit the most southern portions of the latter state. There your rich are more princely [Pg 119] and aristocratic, and your poor more wretched and degraded; but to tell you the plain truth, many of your little slaveholders are miserably poor and ignorant; and what must be the condition of that negro who is a slave to one of these miserable wretches? They are uniformly hard and cruel masters, and the more fortune or fate frowns upon them, the more cruel they become to their slaves. ”

“ Well knowing that the planting of this colony would essentially promote the security of Carolina, shielding that province from the direct assaults and machinations of the Spaniards in Florida, preventing the ready escape of fugitive slaves, guarding her southern borders from the incursions of Indians, increasing commercial relations, and enhancing the value of lands, the South Carolinians were eager to further the prosperity of Georgia. ”

“ Every [168] one is filled with indignation against the city of New York, on account of the way in which the news of the reduction of Fort Sumter has been received there. New England has acted just as was expected, but better things were anticipated on the part of the Empire city. There is no sign of shrinking from a contest: on the contrary, the Carolinians are full of eagerness to test their force in the field. “Let them come!” is their boastful mot d’ordre.
The anger which is reported to exist in the North only adds to the fury and animosity of the Carolinians. ”

“ Man, woman, and child, we’ll die first.” Imagine these and an infinite variety of similar sentiments uttered by courtly, well-educated men, who set great store on a nice observance of the usages of society, and who are only moved to extreme bitterness and anger when they speak of the North, and you will fail to conceive the intensity of the dislike of the South Carolinians for the free states. ”

“ We will show you what Southern hospitality is. We don't go upon the Yankee system of Mr. So-and-so and What-do-ye-call-'um. Our feelings are in keeping with our State pride, which, with our extreme sensibility of honor, forbids the countenance of meanness. South Carolinians, sir, are at the very top of the social ladder—awake to every high-minded consideration of justice and right. We are not moved by those morbid excitements and notions that so often lead people away at the North. Make no unnecessary preparation, Captain, and I will do myself the honor to call upon you in an hour. ”

“ The Virginians liked a leisurely planter’s life with abundant social pleasures. The Tennesseeans and Kentuckians were hardly distinguishable from the Virginians and Carolinians, to whom they were closely related. The northern professional and business men exercised an influence more than commensurate with their numbers, being, in a way, picked men. Neither the Georgians nor the Virginians were assertive office-seekers, but the Carolinians liked to hold office, and the politics of the state were moulded by the South Carolinians and Georgians. ”

“ For instance, most North Carolinians seem addicted to the belief that Mecklenburg County drew up certain drastic resolutions of Independence, May 20, 1775; and the man who is not convinced of it had better live somewhere else than in North Carolina. In like manner many Southerners suppose it to be an established fact that the aristocracy in the South were descended from English Cavaliers, and the leaders in New England from the Puritans. ”

“ The growing importance of the English colonies on the north, and the aggressive and irritable character of their settlers, gave rise at an early period of their existence to bitter feelings between them and their more southern neighbors, manifested by a series of attacks and reprisals on both sides, kept alive almost continually till the cession to England in 1763. So much did the Carolinians think themselves aggrieved, that as early as 1702, Colonel Moore, then governor of the province, made an impotent and ill-advised attempt to destroy St. Augustine ”

“ The people of Carolina, who dwell in the lower country, are annually compelled to leave their homes, however attached to them. None can travel without gaining knowledge, and losing prejudices, and the Carolinians are, to a great degree, liberal and intelligent. To remain in summer on the plantations, is at the risk of life; they are therefore found, at that season, in the northern and eastern states, and in Europe. They are social, and in general closely united. In New England, gentlemen of neighboring towns are often unacquainted with each other ”

“ Their years of hardships and strifes only served to make them more vigorous. They increased rapidly in population and built up an active trade. South Carolina became one of the most prosperous of the colonies. The colonists of the lower country were people of learning and culture. The settlers of the middle and upper country were energetic, patriotic, and noble. There was no aristocracy. There were quite a number of able clergymen, skilled physicians, and well trained lawyers among the South Carolinians. ”

“ While the people of New England were murmuring because of Writs of Assistance and other grievances, the Carolinians were not indifferent listeners, especially those upon the seaboard; and before the Stamp Act lighted the flame of general indignation in America, leading men in South Carolina were freely discussing the rights and privileges of each colony, and saw in day-dreams a mighty empire stretching along the Atlantic coast from the Penobscot to the St. ”

“ Sloping in a long, gradual sweep of undulating hills and valleys, overspread with the silver network of her myriad streams, from her lofty green-bannered battlements, erected by God, down to her shifting shore, where Hatteras lies in wait for her enemies by sea, North Carolina spreads out the peaceful lap of her bounteous land for her children and for all who cherish her. ”

“ The possession of slaves renders them proud, impatient of restraint, and gives them a haughtiness of manner which, to those unaccustomed to them, is disagreeable; but we find among them a high sense of honour, a delicacy of sentiment, and a liberality of mind, which we look for in vain in the more commercial citizens of the northern states. The genius of the Carolinian, like the inhabitants of all southern countries, is quick, lively, and acute; in steadiness and perseverance he is naturally inferior to the native of the north ”

“ Ye sons of the sunny South, strike to be free!
Fear not the Northern despot, or his feeble frown,
[Pg 255] Who seeks, through his minions, the South to put down;
Look to your God, from whence comes all power,
And seek His aid and protection in each darkened hour.
Strike again and again, O ye sons of the free!
Carolina’s sons to this platform have come—
Protection to Liberty, to fireside, and home—
Their watch-word to-day, as their Fathers’ of old,
Truth, Justice, and Freedom, before Northern gold.
Ye are the sons of the Fathers who bled to be free! ”

“ Or none save what the battle-day
Shall wash in seas of blood away,
Carolina!
Thy skirts, indeed, the foe may part,
Thy robe be pierced with sword and dart,
They shall not touch thy noble heart,
Carolina!
VI.
Ere thou shalt own the tyrant's thrall,
Ten times ten thousand men must fall;
Thy corpse may hearken to his call,
Carolina!
When by thy bier, in mournful throngs,
The women chant thy mortal wrongs,
'Twill be their own funereal songs,
Carolina!
From thy dead breast, by ruffians trod,
No helpless child shall look to God;
All shall be safe beneath thy sod,
Carolina! ”

“ The settlers of the Carolinas were a dogged type of men who faced external dangers with courage and good sense, distinctly contradictory of their pig-headed, factious, anarchic spirit in all internal affairs. ”

“ The great interest of the early history of the Carolinas is that the colony won for itself against very considerable odds the rights of local government and freedom from the shackles of the Proprietors. The settlers exhibited from first to last that full determination which is peculiarly associated with those of English stock to control their own destiny without the leading-strings of a few, perhaps benevolent, but generally misguided, human beings, whose powers have been conferred upon them by chance. ”

“ The English colonists, who sat in the other two congregations, came to Carolina’s soil to better their estate; but it was for liberty of soul, to lift their ardent and exalted prayer to God as their own conscience bade them, and not as any man dictated, that those French colonists sought the New World. No Puritan splendor of independence and indomitable courage outshines theirs. They preached a word as burning as any that Plymouth or Salem ever heard. ”

“ If those who make up the ragamuffin following of Mister Washington could not depend on such as you to provide for the women and children, they might be forced to remain at home where they belong, instead of hatching treason, and I could then, perhaps, clear this portion of the colonies of every male inhabitant who is old enough to be of service in any capacity. Before I have performed my mission you of the Carolinas shall understand what rebellion means, for it is my purpose to teach you a lesson. ”

“ Nature always asserts her rights, and Christianity means gladness.
The English colonies of the south after the restoration began to show evidence of improvement. Mr. William Drummond, the sturdy Scotch emigrant to Virginia, having been appointed governor of North Carolinia brought that country into the favorable notice of the world. Clarendon gained for Carolinia a charter which opened the way for religious freedom. One clause held out to the proprietaries a hope of revenue from colonial customs, to be imposed in colonial ports by Carolinia legislatures. ”

“ At intervals there followed other hardy folk. Quakers, subject to persecution in old Virginia, fled into these wilds. The name Carolina grew to mean backwoods, frontiersman's land. Here were forest and stream, Indian and bear and wolf, blue waters of sound and sea, long outward lying reefs and shoals and islets, fertile soil and a clime neither hot nor cold. Slowly the people increased in number. Families left settled Virginia for the wilderness; men without families came there for reasons good and bad. Their cabins, their tiny hamlets were far apart; they practised a hazardous agriculture ”

“ It is very well known, that Carolina can raise every thing that this Colony can ; and they having their Labour so much cheaper will always ruin our Market, unless we are in some Measure on a Footing with them ; and as in both, the Land is worn out in four or five Years, and then fit for Nothing but Pasture ; we must be always at a great deal more Expence than they in Clearing new Land for Planting. ”

“ Under Blake's benign rule the century closed in the Carolinas with a better popular feeling towards the Huguenots, complete religious toleration to all Christians except Catholics, and a marked increase in the material prosperity of the settlers.
The Carolinas, which had been planted sixty years later than Virginia, were in 1700 still feeble; and it was half a century before they began to be important colonies. The chief interest of the Carolinas in the development of America is the failure of the proprietors to stem or to deflect the tide of local government. ”

“ The history of the Carolinas only resembles that of Maryland in the fact that they were both proprietary colonies. The swampy and low-lying coast to the south of Virginia had, in the early years of colonisation, offered little temptation to settlers, and long remained uninhabited by Englishmen or Spaniards. Certainly in 1564, Laudonnière, a Huguenot gentleman and naval officer, attempted a plantation at Port Royal in South Carolina, and named his fortress Caroline, "in honour of our Prince, King Charles" ”

“ To the careless eye the colony might seem overwhelmingly for King and Church. "If New England be called a Receptacle of Dissenters, and an Amsterdam of Religion, Pennsylvania the Nursery of Quakers; Maryland the Retirement of Roman Catholicks, North Carolina the Refuge of Runaways and South Carolina the Delight of Buccaneers and Pyrates, Virginia may be justly esteemed the happy Retreat of true Britons and true Churchmen for the most Part." This "for the most part" paints the situation, for there existed an opposition, a minority, which might grow to balance, and overbalance. ”