Nor did they draw the awful sword until the
Thirteen Colonies, in Congress assembled, (1774,) solemnly pledged
each other to stand as one people in defence of the old local
government. This was in the majesty of revolution. It is profanation
to compare with this patience and glory the insurrection begun by
South Carolina. She--the first time such an organization ever did
it--assumed to be a nation; and then madly led off in a suicidal war
on the National Government, although the three branches of it,
Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary, recognized every constitutional
obligation, and had not attempted an invasion of any local right.
A month after the Governor transmitted his plan for an alteration of
the Constitution, he renewed, in an elaborate letter to Lord
Hillsborough, (January 24, 1769,) his old allegation, that the popular
leaders designed by their September town-meeting to inaugurate
insurrection, and by the Convention to make their proposed
insurrection general,--and that the plan was, to remove the King's
Governor and resume the old Charter. "A chief of the faction"
--this was a sample of the evidence--"said that he was always
for gentle measures; for he was only for driving the Governor and
Lieutenant-Governor out of the Province, and taking the government
into their own hands.
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