Seating Me
A long debate, however, ensued in the convention upon the question, and it was finally decided only by the close vote of 53 to 50 that I be seated. George D. Tillman, now a member of Congress from South Carolina, made a very bitter speech against seating me. He thought the insolence of this Yankee was beyond precedent in claiming to represent the grand old parish of St. Helena, which had been represented in the past by Middleton, Rhett, Bull and other distinguished citizens of the State. In a speech that was really prophetic, he predicted that to admit me would be to show dragons' teeth, and that ultimately I would be followed by a horde which should devour the state.
James L. Orr made a speech in favor of my admission, and said that he hoped to see the state overrun with just such newcomers. I was, perhaps, the youngest man in the convention, and was surrounded by men of the first rank of the State. Scarcely a man in that convention but had a title. There were ex-senators, ex-governors, ex-chancellors, ex-judges and ex-members of Congress. It was the intellectual power of the state to say nothing of ex-generals, colonels and ex-captains of the confederate army. Probably two-thirds of those men had been members of the convention which carried the state out of the Union, and had looked upon that act at the time it was performed as
The Crowning End
of a lifetime of agitation and anxiety. Now they were called upon to undo it all, but they seemed incapable of understanding the true position of affairs, and were totally ignorant of what had been accomplished by the war and blind to the logic of events.
For instance, one of the questions early raised and referred to the judiciary committee was whether Negroes should be allowed to testify in the courts. Judge Frost of Charleston introduced a resolution that the ordinance fixing the status of the Negro upon this question should be passed by the convention. Chancelor Ingalls, who recently died in Baltimore, opposed the proposition, claiming that a sovereign convention called as this was for a special purpose, ought not to legislate. Upon the question of discharging the committee from further consideration of the subject, there were but two votes in the negative, Judge Frost, the mover, a man of 80 years, and myself.
Isolated as I was from the start, I was treated by the convention with the utmost courtesy, and when I occasionally rose to speak, I received the
Undivided Attention
of the members, and the rather obtrusive attention of the ladies who filled the galleries. Such remarks could be heard as: "There, that Yankee is going to speak."