The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-01-06
IN MEMoRIAM
FRANCIS w. PICKENs.
BY LEROY F. YoUMANs.

South Carolina. For three generations il
has held prominent station in the roll O
her public men. Andrew Pickens, the
elder, was worthy compeer of the great
Wing chieftains of the Revolution and
with the 'sGame Cock" Sumter, and the
s"Swamp Fox" Marion, composed that
famous trio of the Partisan leaders OF the
unpaid gentlemen of Carolina, whose
fame will always live in "song and story
in the old Palmetto State, whatever com
biexion her destiny may assume. His
conquest of the Cherokees, the wound in
the breast, which he received in the thick
est of the fight at Eutaw, and his gallant
services at the hard fought battle of the
Cowpens, for which Congress voted him
a sword, would be kept alive by tradition,
even were they not indelbly impressed
on the brightest pages Of the Southern
chapters Of the history of that great
struggle. He was General in the war
of the Revolution, was subsequently elec-
ted to Congress, declined reelection,
and was afterwards solicited to accept the
Office of Governor of the State, which be
also declined.
: His son, Andrew Pickens, the younger,
was; also distinguished both in military
and civil life. In the war Of 1872, onr
second war of Independence, as it has
s been not inaptly termed, he was Colonel
of the 10th Regiment q. S. Regulars,
stationed on the Canada frontier, and was
afterwards appointed to the command OF
one of the two Regiments raised by the
State for the defence Of Charleston in
1874. Upon the return of peace, he was,
In 1916, elected one of that long line OF
illustrious Governors of South Carolins-.
the choice of the white men of the State,
which commenced in ITS with John
Rut1edge.
His son, Francis W. Piclxens, more
widely known than either sire or grand
sire-morc widely known, indeed, on the
day of his death than any living Carroll
nian, after high offices held in times of
feyerish excitement, and a long and
eventful public career passed amid the
storms Of State, has but lately breathed
his last, at the family seat of Edgewood,
amid tho endearments of domestic life,
and with chiidrens' faces round his bed !;
but leaving no male heir to transmit TO
after generations the name which has
been so long and so much honored in
South Carolina.
The last Pickens-though his services
MS Aid to Governor Hayue in the stormy
days of Modification, and his course as
Governor. of South Carolina in the first
two years of the great civil war in Amer
ica, gave no uncertain promise that, as
were the sire and grandsire in military
affairs SO would be the son-won his lau-
rels in that civil arena, for which he
Sevinced from boyhood passionate pro-
eliyity.
aPolitics," says the last of the British
Premiers-a man who has perhaps lived
more in and for the world of politics than
any living statesman" Politics is
branch of study certainly the most de-
lighttul in the world, but for boy as cer-
tainly the most pernicious." Here we
have followed the practice, rather than
the theory, of Mr.. D'lsrcali; the highest
goal of honorable ambition is to acquire
great renown by great public services,
and ambitious yoath naturally aspire to
political distinction.
= Mr.. Pickens' early education was we'll
adapted to form an Orator and States
man. He was an earnest student OF
Aristotle, the most acute of human in
telIects, whom he justly considered the
most profound of all who have treated of
Government; and throughout life was
fond of tracing in modern authors, re-
peated, varied and disguised, those funda-
mental ideas of the science which the
greatest of philosophers taught the great
est of ccnquerors. AS IN Craftsmanship
his master was the founder of the science
of Politics, so in Oratory his master was
the greatest Orator who ever spoke,
ssWhose resistless eloquence
Welded at will that fierce democratic,
Shock the arsenal and fulmned over Greece"
- So attached indeed was he to Demos
themes, that he could repeat in youth the
whole of the transcendent Grafton on the
5 Grown. and would often in later life quote
striking passages of it with unaffected
admiration.
Under the able tuition of his father he
studied and mcmorised Burke's great
Sneeches on the Taxation and Concilia-
ton of the Colonies; Sheridan's famous
Beoum speech on the celebrated trial OF
Warren Hastings, and Lord Mansfield s
ablest efforts in the House of Lords and
to these, and the other bravuras OF BrI-
tisb oratory he constantly recurred with
the greatest pleasure.
But his heart, like Degare's, was in the
Classics, and it might be truly said Of
him, in the beautiful language of col
,Iege friend, afterwards u Congressional
colleague and rival aspirant for high office,
who had the same tastes with himself,
that he ssdrank deep and drank often oi
the precious waters of those virgin foun,
taips which were unlocked in natures
first known cycle.''