Williamsburg County, South Carolina - Chapter 26: Slavery and Secession, 1923

There were two great ideas obtaining at the time of the creation of the American nation. For twelve vears, there had been thirteen independent states along the Ah lantic coast. It was realized that some form of union was necessary for the mutual protection of these states and for their highest opportunity for development. Until this time, a state had depended most largely on the per¬ sonality of some individual leader, or king; and about him, the personalities of several lesser leaders, who domi¬ nated sections of the country, gathered. A strong king made a strong nation but the making of a strong nation usually worked unnecessary hardships upon the indi¬ viduals composing this state.

The founders of the American Union were learned men. They knew the history of nations and had followed them as they rose and fell. One faction of the founders honestly believed that these thirteen states, along the Atlantic sea¬ board, should unite, surrendering to the Federal Union all of the powers inherent in a state and thus make the union one great state wherein all the powers of these thirteen smaller states should be amalgamated. This fac¬ tion realized the practically unlimited possibilities of this great union existing in their minds. The individual leaders of this faction lived in the northern portion of these colonies where commerce and manufacturing pre¬ dominated. They had much relationship with the other states of the world and saw very clearly how much better for them would be such a powerful state as the com¬ plete fusion of these thirteen states would make.

The other idea as to the formation of the American state obtained in the southern portion of the territory. The Southerners were planters and stock raisers. They lived largely on their plantations and had but little actual need for anything which they did not produce. The dominant element in this southern portion were extreme individualists by inheritance. They wanted to be let alone. They saw that economic conditions in so large a territory would result in inevitable clashes of interest and believed that the best thing for them would be to preserve, as far as possible, states' rights in their own section.

Sentiment, however, was by no means unanimous in either the northern or the southern sections of the Ameri¬ can territory. The strong central government idea, how¬ ever, predominated in the North, while the sectional rights idea maintained the ascendency in the South. Sentiment in the State of South Carolina was overwhelmingly in favor of the retaining all rights possible in the forma¬ tion of the Federal Government.

Sentiment in Williamsburg District, however, was com¬ paratively evenly divided. In the Constitutional Con¬ vention at Columbia, in 1788, when South Carolina joined the Union, Wiliam Wilson was one of the leaders in the promotion of the strong central government idea in the convention, while Patrick Dollard was equally enthusi¬ astic and effective in his efforts for retaining everything which South Carolina could before adopting the Federal Constitution. Mr. Dollard eloquently opposed to the end the adoption of any Federal Constitution.

For several decades, Williamsburg had close relations with Charleston and Georgetown, where commerce and shipping interests predominated. In these two cities the strong federal union idea was in the ascendency in the beginning, and probably from them came the force that inclined Williamsburg until the tariff became unreason¬ able.

popularly known as the tariff, became burdensome, senti¬ ment in Williamsburg began to change; and later when the tariff in the beginning levied for the support of the Federal Union began practically to subsidize manufactur¬ ing and commercial interests and lay grievous burdens on stock raising and agriculture, the sentiment towards states' rights grew rapidly.

The first state action in South Carolina was the Nulli¬ fication Convention in 1832. Sentiment about that time in Williamsburg was by no means unanimous. In fact, the more substantial element in the district did not favor the proceedings of the Nullification Convention.

When the manufacturing section of the United States secured control in the Congress and began to use a giant's strength like a giant, agriculture of South Carolina arose and asserted what it believed its rights under the Ameri¬ can Constitution as adopted in 1789.

In the beginning and until the production of cotton in large quantities began about 1800, slave labor was not profitable in South Carolina, and up to this time the State had often considered the abolition of slavery. Gradually, from 1800, African slaves grew in value in South Carolina, since slaves had produced cotton and rice at a profit. African slaves were not profitable in the northern sections of the country. From about 1800 until 1860, the northern section of the country was just as eager to sell its slaves as the southern portion was anxious to buy, and it did not take many years of eager sellers and anxious purchasers to shift slavery to the South.

The conflict of these two ideas as to the American Union, the strong states' rights idea and the strong fed¬ eral union notion, had inextricably mixed in it serious economic conditions due to differences of sectional in¬ terest. Each section soon began to consider only itself

Slavery was the source of great power in the South. The North realized this. It is but a short way from the realization of an economic interest to the actualization of a strong religious sentiment to sustain and support it. It did not, therefore, take a long time for professional Puritan religious reformers to begin to preach and to pray about the evils of African slavery in the South. Some of them were sincere and honest, perhaps most of them, but like all reformers, they lost themselves in their own delusions. The power which slaves gave the South in Congress was the real reason for so many pathetic "Songs of Labor'7 which were written in the section where no darkies sang around the "Great House77 door. The rabid Abolitionists at the North usually proclaimed only the inhumanity of African slavery in the South. The most charitable thing that may be said about them is that they did not know.

This is no defense of African slavery in the South. African slavery in the South did not grow out of mis¬ sionary ideas for the promotion of the Christian spirit in the world, nor was it designed for the promotion of al¬ truistic sentiment, but it did take a race of men that for thousands of years had roamed the pampas and plains and jungles of Africa like wild beasts, and, within a single century, bring forth multitudes of substantial Christian men and women.

In 1808, there was a shipload of Guinea negroes sold in Williamsburg, South Carolina. They spoke no lan¬ guage save that of grunts and nods. They knew not their right hand from their left. One hundred years later, in 1908, the descendants of these same Guinea negroes were prosperous citizens. Some of them owned considerable plantations and produced large crops of corn, cotton, and tobacco; some of them were members of the bar in New

York City; some were practising medicine; some were architects and builders. There is no other case of such remarkable development of a race recorded in history or told in tradition.

Slave owners in Williamsburg, South Carolina, were neither more nor less saintly, human nor inhuman, than other men of the world of their day and generation. When these savage Africans were brought to this district, they could not be disciplined or controlled and civilized and made serviceable only by the use of smooth tongues and gloved hands. It was necessary that the planter trans¬ form a wild man into a profitable workman within a short period of time that the slave might be profitable. This was a tremendous task and it was well done with as little physical force as was expedient. One now marvels that the transformation was often effected by these planters within such a short period of time. Slaves were required to render instant and unquestioning obedience and this proved their salvation. Out of this slave train¬ ing, came some of the most noble characters, the most loyal subjects, and the most beautiful service ever seen in the world. One wonders now when he thinks that the son of a cannibal could become the "major domo" of a southern plantation. It required clear minds, strong arms, and endless patience to make Guinea negroes into service¬ able citizens. South Carolina did it. It must not be thought for one moment that the transformation of these savages into good men and women was effected for other than utilitarian and economic motives, but the resulting love and loyalty fostered in this reformation often proved the most beautiful thing in the world.

Bill was the son of a negro captured in the jungles on the Congo, and sold as a slave on the block in Charles¬ ton. In the graveyard about the beautiful old Black Mingo Baptist Church, one now finds a marble slab on which is graven : "Sacred to the memory of Bill, a strictly honest and faithful servant of Cleland Belin. Bill was often intrusted with the care of Produce and Mer¬ chandize to the value of many thousand dollars, without loss or damage. He died 7th October, 1854, in the 35th year of his age, an approved member of the Black Mingo Baptist Church. Well done, thou good and faithful ser¬ vant. Enter thou into Joy of thy Lord."

It must not be understood that slaves were always well and kindly treated. It must be realized that there were many thousand masters of so many thousand minds and hearts. It must be remembered, however, that nearly every one of these many thousand masters was essaying his utmost to make his slaves as valuable as possible and knew the value of good treatment and kindness in the development of the serviceability and dependability of his slave.

It is told of a large slave owner, one in Williamsburg District, that sometimes he moved up and down his line of slaves, while they were working in the fields, beating them promiscuously with his cane, and sometimes he knocked one senseless. It is told of another slave owner in the district that once he hanged a negro man up by the thumbs and used the claws of an enraged tom cat to lacerate the bare back of the suspended slave. These two stories are probably true. Each of these masters, how¬ ever, would now be considered a paranoiac. At least half of the descendants of each one of them have spent a considerable part of their lives in sanitariums for the treatment of nervous diseases. That same master of whom the story is told of suspending the negro by the thumbs was seen one morning digging a ditch in a swamp while several of his slaves stood near on dry ground. A man passing asked the master why he did not make the negroes do the work. The master replied, "It might make the negroes sick."

In Williamsburg, slave owners fed and clothed their negroes the best they knew. The best physicians that could be secured were kept on the plantations and negroes were given every possible medical attention. They were too valuable to lose. Stories of cruelty and inhuman treatment of slaves in Williamsburg in individual cases may be true but the fact remains that the Williamsburg slave prepared his master's food, nursed his master's children, and closed his master's eyes in death. The master loved his negro and the negro loved his master, and out of their relations, grew much of the beauty of the world.

In 1835, petitions from the North began to flood Con¬ gress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Colum¬ bia and from this time until slavery was abolished in the United States, the activities of the abolitionists in¬ creased. Almost everything done by act of Congress in the city of Washington was tinctured with the slavery question and it was a continuous struggle between slavery and the anti-slavery forces to secure a majority in the Congress. The anti-slavery section was much larger in territory and in population than the slavery section. Every time, during this period, that new territory asked to be admitted into the Union, there was a fight as to whether it should be a free or a slave state; and for a long time states were admitted in pairs, one free and one slave. They could be admitted in no other way.

This continuous agitation on the subject of slavery, the means used for its abolition and the realization of the effect of its abolition on the South, made practically every southern planter a secessionist. Until about 1856, when the Dred Scott decision was delivered by Chief Justice Taney, there had been a great many union men in South Carolina, those who had steadfastly hoped and believed that the Union might continue and that the slavery ques¬ tion might be settled without secession. Some of the best men in Williamsburg District were among these union men. Love for the United States of America, until 1850, was nowhere greater than it was in Williamsburg. When the Unionists of Williamsburg realized that the Dred Scott decision would be nullified by some means, and when they fully understood the principles of the Con¬ stitution of the United States, supplemented by the de¬ cision of the Supreme Court, would be nullified in one way or another, then all Williamsburg saw that seces¬ sion was the only way that states' rights, as had been and were being held in these parts, could be maintained.

In 1851, there was an election held in the State of South Carolina on the question of secession. The largest vote ever cast in the State was recorded at that time, - Secession 17,056 ; Cooperation, 24,914. The Secession party after its election renewed its efforts. A confidential letter distributed among the members of the Secession party, which letter was written by Maxcy Gregg, after¬ wards a distinguished general in the Confederate Army, contains the following paragraphs: "The defeat of the Secession Party has been effected by a coalition of Par¬ ties repugnant to each other in their principles, and by means most pernicious to the safety, as well as humiliat¬ ing to the character, of the State of South Carolina.

"The Anti-Secession coalition is composed of two prin¬ cipal sections. The first, which is much the smallest (sic) in number and has heretofore been regarded as of inconsiderable power, is the Union Party. Adherence to the Union, at the expense of whatever submission and degradation may be required, is the object of this party. The success of the coalition thus far enures to the benefit of the Union Party.

"Another section of the coalition, and a much larger and more powerful one, consists of disunion men, who, sensible of the degradation and danger of our condition, desire to resist, and to form a Southern Confederacy, but regard the cooperation of other States in the resistance either as indispensable or of such paramount importance as not to justify the separate action of South Carolina at the present time.

"Between these two sections is perhaps to be placed another class of men professing the resistance principles of the last as most popular, but really desirous of defeat¬ ing all efforts for resistance and continuing in the Union. This class may at any moment, when their time serving propensities may prompt it, bring a great and sudden ac¬ cession of power to the Union Party.

"Gloomy as is the prospect, it is not yet necessary to give up the cause of the State in utter despair. Sub¬ mission is not yet to be contemplated as our inevitable destiny."

In 1852, a Secession Convention was held in the city of Columbia, at which the resolution as follows was adopted : "We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That South Carolina, in the exercise of her sovereign will, is an independent State, acceded to the Federal Union, known as the United States of America, and that in the exercise of the same sovereign will, it is her right, without let, hindrance, or molestation from any power whatsoever, to secede from the said Federal Union; and for the sufficiencv of the causes which may impel her to such separation, she is responsible alone, under God, to the tribunal of public opinion among the nations." The representatives from Williamsburg were S. E. Graham, A. W. Dozier, and D. M. Mason. Mr. Dozier did not attend this convention.

This convention shows the feeling in South Carolina at that time. It makes it very plain that all hope of re¬ maining in the Union had not been lost, but just as clearly does it show the determined opposition to the en-

In 1854, Governor James H. Adams recommended that the African slave trade be opened. Committees were ap¬ pointed by both branches of the Legislature to consider the matter and report at its next session. In this Legis¬ lature, a member of the committee appointed by the House of Representatives was J. Johnston Pettigrew, one of the most brilliant men that South Carolina ever pro¬ duced. He read the minority report for this special com¬ mittee of the House of Representatives. Trescot said that it was "a clear, complete, eloquent, and forceful exposi¬ tion of the convictions of three-fourths of the slave holders of the South." Pettigrew's report is one of the greatest papers of the slavery regime. Many people in South Carolina hoped that such men as he would be able so to direct the opinions of the majority that secession and bloodshed would be avoided. The slave trade was not reopened.

There were at this time eighteen thousand slaves owned by negro masters in the United States and negro masters in the State of South Carolina more than that relatively proportionate number. There were some negro slave owners in Williamsburg. The descendants of Joshua Braveboy, a negro who had won his freedom on account of his services in the Revolutionary War, owned many negroes in this district.

The value of a good farm negro in Williamsburg in 1800 was $500.00; in 1820, $725.00; in 1840, $800.00; in 1850, $700.00; in 1860, $1200.00. Slaves who were well trained as house servants, horsemen, mechanics, carpen¬ ters, blacksmiths, and to other useful trades, frequently were sold for prices ranging from three to five thousand dollars in gold. In 1860, South Carolina stood third among the states in the Union in per capita wealth, $779.00 a head. The state taxation amounted to $1.85 per capita.

Slaves and general wealth were probably more evenly divided in Williamsburg County in 1850 than in any other district in the State of South Carolina. There were practically no poor people in the district and there were few who were very wealthy. There was no place in the district for a man who did not own slaves except as an overseer of slaves. Men who did not own slaves, except those who could find places as overseers on the planta¬ tions, did not remain long in Williamsburg. They mi¬ grated westward. Some of them went to Kansas and to California and usually became spitfire abolitionists. The doings of Kansas, Nebraska, and California had much more influence on the secession of the South and the abolition of slavery than did the preaching of ministers and the publishing of pamphleteers in Massachusetts and Ohio. Some of the very men who could find no place in Williamsburg were those most aggressive in the new states. There was, however, a class of white citizens in Williamsburg prior to 1860 who owned but a few slaves and who worked with their own hands. These were the turpentine men who began coming to this district in 1843.

From 1850 until 1860, however much the conservative element in South Carolina had labored to avert scession, it was known that such would finally result. The relig¬ ious denominations in the countrv broke their bonds of union. There became a Presbyterian Church North and a Presbyterian Church South ; a Methodist Church North and a Methodist Church South; and a Baptist Church North and a Baptist Church South. The Protestant Epis¬ copal Church in the United States had no such bond of union as the Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists. Each diocese determined for its own territory its polity. It had, therefore, no reason for further disunion.

Theological diplomats of these several denominations declared one reason and another for these separations, but all their ex cathedra utterances were so thinly veiled by truth that the everlasting fact stood out unmistakable and clear. The ruling element in the membership of Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian Churches in the North held that slavery was wrong, and the dominant faction in those same churches in the South declared that slavery was right. These churches, and all other churches, by whatsoever name known, in every age and clime, follow the will of Man, their Creator, Preserver, and Pro¬ moter. Some of the most powerful sermons ever preached in Massachusetts were based on the doctrine that Slavery was the incestuous offspring of Sin and Death. Even more eloquent were some of the proclamations coming from South Carolina pulpits at the same time declaring that same slavery most pleasing to Almighty God. It is strange that so few men have ever realized that one must go straight to Almighty God to find the Truth.

Out of the ever increasing conflict and the more and more difficult compromising between the sectional ideas existing for three quarters of a century in the United States in the matter of relationship between the several states and the Federal Union, with the difficult economic condition and the resultant severity of feeling induced by African slavery, there came on November 6, 1860, the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. The southern section knew that it had lost on the forum and that it must resort to the field to realize its rights.

On November 7, 1860, the day after Lincoln was elected, the Grand Jury of the United States District Court in Charleston refused to function. When asked by the judge whether the jury had any presentments to make, Robert N. Gourdin, foreman, replied, in effect : "The verdict of the ballot-box on yesterday has swept away the last hope for the permanence of the Federal Government of these several States. In these extraordinary circum¬ stances, the Grand Jury respectfully declines to proceed with its presentments." Whereupon, Judge A. G. Mc¬ Grath arose, doffed his silken gown, and formally resigned his office, saying, in part : "So far as I am concerned, this Temple of Justice, raised under the Constitution of the United States, is now closed. If it shall never be again opened, I thank God that its doors have been closed before its altar has been desecrated with sacrifices to tyranny."

Governor Gist called the Legislature of the State in extraordinary session, recommended that the militia be reorganized, the whole military forces of the State placed in a position to be used at shortest notice, and every man between the ages of eighteen and forty-five be well armed, and that the services of ten thousand volunteers be im¬ mediately accepted. He designated November 21, as a day to be observed by all people of South Carolina in fasting and prayer, pleading for Divine guidance in the existing condition.

Secession clubs were immediately formed in every Mili¬ tia beat in Williamsburg District. On December 16, 1860, the Secession flag was raised in Kingstree, and the three delegates which Williamsburg had chosen to represent it at the Secession Convention in Columbia on December 17, John G. Pressley, Anthony W. Dozier, and R. C. Logan, assembled to depart for the convention. About them, as they left the Court House for the train, there stood all Williamsburg. The district had gathered to ex¬ press silently and unmistakably its verdict.

On December 20, every member of the Secession Con¬ vention from every district in South Carolina signed the Ordinance of Secession, dissolving the bonds between the State of South Carolina and the Federal Union. Shouts of deliverance coming from that Convention Hall in Charleston were sounded unbroken to the uttermost ends of the Commonwealth. That night bonfires burned and bugles blew in every city and hamlet in the land.

It was no simple matter that Williamsburg had con¬ sented and had aided in the dissolution of this Federal Union, which it had so valiantly served to create and which it had sustained with its best blood for three quarters of a century. It had not forgotten Marion and Mouzon and Macaulay and McCottry and James and Scott. Its children had played about patriots* graves in infancy and its old men had told tales of their heroism about every fireside in the land. The Declaration of In¬ dependence hung in every hall in the district and it had been read at public gatherings on every birthday of the nation. Secession came out of the depths of Williams¬ burg.