Then more soberly the editor added:—
"The news of the passage of the convention resolutions by an almost unanimous vote, at Columbia, was received in this city on Saturday night with demonstrations which have, perhaps, never been equalled in the political history of the country. Our whole community seemed to breathe freer and deeper, and upon every brow sat confidence and hope. It was as though the glorious sun had suddenly dispersed cloud and mist and vapor, and sent its illuminating rays to every heart and home. Men looked each other in the face as men should do who feel that under God their destinies are in their own hands."
Thus a "daughter of South Carolina" inflamed her sisters:—
"Listen, daughters of South Carolina, to the voice of a faithful sister. Should our State back out now she would be disgraced forever.... Shrink now, and we are crushed forever. Then there will be no end of the trouble you fear. Abolition emissaries will be at work all over the South, inciting the negroes in every direction. Trials must come, but let them come in the right way, and all will be well. Secede, put ourselves in a state of defence; be ready for any emergency. Should the government coerce, our sister States will come to the rescue. Let it be so. Better perish beneath the shock than to live degraded.... O women of South Carolina! Mothers, sisters, wives! do not wear the white feather now, unless, like that gallant king of old, it waves on our men to the war."[84]
Said another:—
"Let us women of Carolina prove that the same noble spirit which visited the mothers and maidens of '76 is alive, and glowing in the spirits of their descendants. I am myself a widowed mother, but I have said to my three sons, that if any one of them shall be craven enough to desert the State now, to temporize in her councils, or be backward if her honor calls them to the field, let him never look upon my face again."[85]
What had transpired to produce this white heat of passion? Simply that a party was coming into power opposed to the extension of slavery over free territory. True this party had also disavowed any intention of interference with slavery in the States; but restriction was loss of power,—paralysis and death at last. The grievance of South Carolina arose wholly from slavery. She claimed the right to traffic in human beings. She believed it was a natural right, authorized by the Creator of the universe, having the sanction and solemnity of the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and Christ himself. It was a natural, moral, and scriptural right for a master to rob his brother in the Lord of his earnings during the week, commune with him on Sunday, whip him on Monday, and sell him on Tuesday. The institution being missionary in its nature, and designed to carry the Gospel to Africa, he had a right to separate husbands and wives, parents and children, break the marriage relation, and establish new alliances at will. No doubt they were sincere in their belief that the system was not only good in itself, but that it was a beneficent arrangement for the well-being of the human race. Certainly it was beneficial to the master; why should it not be to the slave? Men can be as sincerely zealous for Wrong as for Right. Eighteen hundred years ago a man zealous for the truth filled the prisons of Syria with Christians, and thought he was doing righteously in the sight of God; and human nature is the same now as then. Men and women who advocated the righteousness of slavery were scrupulous to a penny in their dealings with one another, and with colored people who were free,—but the loss of freedom gave the right to commit robbery! Strange, also, the confusion and delusion of moral ideas. Society prided itself on its virtue. Men and women of Caucasian blood departing from morality found the door of society shut against them; but slavery being patriarchal it was not a crime, not even an offence against morality, for a planter to choose a Hagar from his slaves. Society placed no bar in his way, the Church no ban upon his action. Hagar could be taken into the master's household, appear in silks and satins, with Ishmael for the pet of the family, or both could be knocked off to the highest bidder in the mart, separated and sent one to the rice-swamps of Georgia and the other to the cane-brakes of Louisiana, Hagar weeping and mourning for her child, and the planter, with the price of blood in his pocket, be received in any parlor in Charleston, or made Governor of the State! There were patriarchs in the convention which carried South Carolina out of the Union, who were urged on to treason by the women of the South. Ishmael would not rise in insurrection, even if his brother Isaac and father Abraham went to war.
Said another "daughter of South Carolina":—
"Arming the State will keep the negroes in check. They are arrant cowards, those dear dark friends of ours.[?] Some of you can remember how in '22 they would shrink away at the gleam of their master's sword as he armed for the nightly patrol, and the creaking of the horseman's saddles as they paraded the streets sent them hiding in every hole and corner."[86]
Isaac was eager for the fray; he burned to fight the Yankees. Hence the consummation of the treason.