Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1861-01-19
Rock Notice.

Book Notice.
Tm HIsTcxx OF sourH cAKoLNA IRON FIRST ErROrzAN
mensrv Rook briprinr the Narrative down present
tme,hg WnLIAE GmEER Sims, author OF femaaSee ku-
taW, &C., 4o. New and revised edition.
This book has teen accidentally overlooked since
its first reception Perhaps no time could be more
appropriate than the present for giving it our atten
ton Certainly more is being said and thought
about South Carolina at the present time, for good
or for evil than about all the other States in the
Union put together. OF the book, it may be briefly
said that it is a clear, vigorous and concise state
ment, written con Gmors. the work of a man who is
penetrated with love for his native State passing
the love of women one who has lived in imagina-
ton through the times of her great struggle for
istence, who cherishes her LNoo1Ss, and MoULEsIEs
and Summers as Athenian his MnrIADEs, or
Spartan his LEOSIDAs, in whom EUrGw ana the Cow
call up brighter recollections and deeper
fhusiasm than MARATHON or THERNoPYLE could
arouse in the imagination of ancient Greece. We
deem it matter of great moment that Americans,
especially Southerners should learn to think rightly
and speak rightly of South Carolina. If it be true
that she has loved Southern rights, mot wisely but
too WE'LL least she has loved them dearly, and even
where condemned ought to be spoken of with regret
rather than with the she has had poured
her We are no. speaking Of Abolition writers and
speakers they have good reason to hate South Caro-
a and hating her. to disguise the hate scorn, but
in States which have one interest with her, which
are threatened with the same dangers, outraged
with the same insults and should be ranging side by
side with her in united resistance; yet, even here
IN Tennessee, in Kentucky, and in Virginia, meet
with writers and speakers who exhaust the Ian
guage of and obloquy in abusing the Palmetto
State. She is proud and aristocratic She was full
of Tories in revolutionary times. She is irebrand
who unnjured herself, seeks to embroil those who
have. suffered more than she, aud are yet content
aYith the Union She is arrogant in declaring her pc
aition and resuming her sovereignty without wait
ing for conference with her sister States with Ten
nessee especially.
We propose to examine some of these taunts in
the Light of history, and entreat those who use
them to reflect on the ncaeulabls injury they have
already inflicted upon the South by such untmely
Indulgence in them. They resolve themselves into
two. one referring to the revolutionary times, the
other to own.
!. Sonth Carolina was full of tories in the revo-
lutionary times, and people expected to in
fer) was rather an obstacle than aid to the reYo
luton.
2. She is too proud and self-willed to act in
cooperation with the other States in the present
crisis, and arrosanty and selishly goes out by her
self
These arc the taunts by which we endeavor to al
ienate from ourselves, the sympathes of State
which has ventured so much for the cause in which,
it will very soon be admitted by all, we are even
more nearly concerned than she is
First then for her revolutionary record, 1t is
certain that no State prompt in resistance
co those despotic measures which brought on the
Revolution. When on the passage of the Stamp
Act ship load of the obnoxious Stamps were sent
to Charleston she in fact, committed precisely the
same offence as she is charged with, she did not
,oaa for her sister Stdes, but at resisted; the
people showed their intentions Enthusiastically that
the Stamps were not landed but stored at Fort
johnson, on James Island which attacked at
midnight by $50 volunteers, who seized the paper
and turned the guns on the British sloop-ofwar,
which found it convenient to put out to sea. This
was in l765 eleven years before the Declaration of
independence what arrogance! 1t would be in
terestng to inquire whether this separate STATE dc
ton was not characterized as prescriptions, by the
loyal press Of the day. Why need this restless
81 State of South Carolina be dragging all into
Revolution ~ So might the submissionists of the
aedf She has not like Boston, had British soldiers
"quartered upon her citizens. She has not had her
ashArbor blockaded; what has she to bear which
.does not affect u.s. and see how quiet we are" So
might the royalists of New York and Virginia have
said of her in those days and doubtless such charges
were made but at present ToRYIsM was certainly
not a charge made agains: her.
Then came the days of the Boston tea-psrty, in
which Charleston, S. c., admits that the Yankees
were beforehand with her. but in good time the Pal
motto boys took their cup of tea, too, and went with
their faces washed instead Of painting themselves
like Indians; and as they did not hide their faces
3, never did any one Of them shrink from the
wal of the deed but boosted Of it in the light of
Not much Toryism in that tea-party.
lIn 1874 two rather important elections we're held
in South Carolina, one of hundred and four dep
uties who assembled in Charleston, "to take into
consideration the relations of the Crown and Col
4onies;'' another Of five deputies to certain gen.
eral Congress holden in Philadelphia. The names
of these latter were JoHN and EDWARD RUTI.EDGE
HENRY MIDDLETON THOMAS LYNCH, and CHREsTorHE9
GApspES The historian would need sharp eyes who
tried TO detect any toryism in either body. The
first declared in the face Of GEORGE the Third and
his advisers that ''taxes should not be imposed up
con the people without their own consent the lat
fer in due time affixed their signatures to the Deela
ration of independence.
After this the revolutionary events followed too
numerously to be recorded in. this article, but in
the spring of l775 news arrived that preparations
of war were making in Britain against the rebel
.ious colonies when To- though 1t was yet more
han year before the Declaration of Independence,
q committee was appointed to effect the seizure Of
the public military stores All the powder in two
magazines was seized eight hundred stands OF arms,
two hundred cutlasses cartouches, matches, hints,
&c. in short all warke stores they could lay their
hands on lis it possible why these men were
vet subjects of the crown of England, the stores
were the properly Of TIE Government, TRAITORS
rebels. robbers,-hey Messrs GREELEY and SEWARD,
try your handsl What will you call them, your
vocabulary is extensive, well! call them what you
will. only not TORIES
We anproach the days Of open war. We find
South Carolina always first, suffering most in the
+,,,,la she who had suffered least in the provoca
tion'@tbe arrogant state. Her impoverished Terri
+o,r g,rn;sbed for yeais the whole sustenance of
tba continental army feeding the Federal troops
while her own volunteers were naked anu surviving,
her beautiful city abandoned TO the occupation OF
the enemy, and when the regular army was repniseo
and the British thought themselves undsputed mas
tiers of the country, her MARIOSs and sUATERs' and
a host of other partisan chieftans, led their gner-
ilIas. like swarms of mosquitoes from the swamps'
and stung the fanced victors with madness, cut oil
their communications, surprised their reconnoter-
ing parties arrested their supplies and at last by
the battles Of Kings Mountain and the Cowpens'
compelled CoaNwALLIs to that disastrous retreat
which issued in his surrender at Yorktown, and
the sullen REIMBURSEMENT of her American colonies
by ting British crown. And in those stirring scenes
Tennessee had ancestors engaged the boy JACKSON
felt the British sword at the Waxhaws, which be
avenged years after at New Orleans and SHELBY
snd a SEVER fought and conquered side by side