Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1860-11-22
For the Yorkvills Enquirer.

TO THE VOTERS OF YORK DISTRICT.
I embrace the earliest opportunity of giving
you a simple statement of the proceedings of
your Legislature, at its recent extra session.
The Governor, in his proclamation converting the
Legislature for the purpose of e~lecting Electors
for President and Vice-President, recommend
ed that provision should be made for the safety
of the State. The urgent necessity of the case
was apparent to all, and your Legislature enter
ed upon the discharge of the duty, under a deep
and solemn sense of its responsibility. Without
taking formal action on the subject, it was tacit-
ly agreed to remain in session until we could
hear the result of the Presidential election.
The calm determination not only of the mem.
bers of the Legislature, but of the thousands
who had focked to the Capitol, was omjnous of
a settled purpose. The one patriotic desire
that animated the bosoms of all, was release from
the accused thraldom id which We were about
to be immured. With feelings heightened and
intensified by the reckless vandalism of those
who were perpetrating an act that must shatter
into fragments liberty's fair fabric, we patiently
awaited the not unexpected result and the same
telegraphic wires that transmitted to US the in
telligence of the election of ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
flashed back upon them the fact that the Legis-
lature of South Carolina had passed a bill for the
call of Convention of her people, the plain and
obvious meaning of which was that they should
withdraw the State from the Federal Union.
But by far the most pleasing feature in the pic
ture is the uuanimity with which the Bill was
passed and it is one too, on which the impartial
historian will dwell with the greatest rapture
And, my Countrymen, if the Southern States
will now be true to themselves, and take their
among the nations of the earth redeemed, olsen
thralled and free from the meshes of the fanati.
cism and low vulgar ~in6delity of the North, the
historian will be in doubt whether he has read
Alright the history of this Government for the past
forty years and will devote a chapter to how
long we ought to have submitted, and when it
mdo IoaSnclJ ~ ouisolfeo NV = nhFe ieolS'Cu.
If it be humiliating to make a faithful record of
the times, there is consolation in the fact that
the usurpations, unjust e~xactions md gross
violations of the letter and spirit of the Consti-
tuition by the North, were acquiesced in by the
South, for the preservation of a Union to which
we had chung with more than flial devotion.
That we are enacting history should engage
our most serious attention, and should inspire
US with the stern purpose to do nothing beneath
the dignity of history. If then the chapter of
the wrongs, injuries and insults to which We
have submitted, should bring the blush and tin
gle of shame to the cheek of future generations,
ct us prepare the material for another chapter,
that will stand in striking contrast, that we OF
last struck for our liberties and determined to
consecrate q portion of this mighty continent,
to Constitutional freedom. The vast difference
in the civilization now prevailing in the two Sec
tions-North and Sonth-warrants US in the
conclusion that q Southern Confederacy with
homogeneous feelings, interests and institutions,
will be the centre of a higher and purer %civiliza-
ton than any to which we have yet attained.
I do not wish, however, to be understood as
intoxicating the belief that we are to have q
smooth sea. In the unsettled state of affairs
that will necessarily follow such q tremendous