C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

‘ [242] world to trust the liberties of a people to such a precarious defence.’— Johnson's Life of Greene, vol. i. p. 397.

Nothing can be more authentic or complete than this testimony. Here, also, is what is said by David Ramsay, an estimable citizen of South Carolina, in his History of the Revolution in that State, published in 1785, only a short time after the scenes which he describes:—

‘While the American soldiers lay encamped (in the low country near Charleston), their tattered rags were so completely worn out, that seven hundred of them were as naked as they were born, excepting a small strip of cloth about their waists, and they were nearly as destitute of meat as of clothing.’—Vol. i. p. 258.

The military weakness of this ‘slaveholding community’ is too apparent. Earn now its occasion: and then join with me in amazement that a Senator from South Carolina should attribute our independence to anything ‘slaveholding.’ The records of the country, and various voices, all disown his brag for Slavery. The State of South Carolina, by authentic history, disowns it. Listen, if you please, to peculiar and decisive testimony, under date of 29th March, 1779, from the Secret Journal of the Continental Congress:—

‘The Committee appointed to take into consideration the circumstances of the Southern States, and the ways and means for their safety and defence, report, that the State of South Carolina (as represented by the Delegates of the said State, and by Mr. Huger, who has come here at the request of the Governor of the said State, on purpose to explain the circumstances thereof) is Unable to make any effectual efforts with militia, by reason of the great proportion of citizens necessary to remain at home, to prevent insurrection among the negroes, and to prevent the desertion of them to the enemy. That the state of the country, and the great number of these people among them, expose the inhabitants to great danger, from the endeavors of the enemy to excite them to revolt or desert.’—Vol. i. p. 105.

Here is South Carolina secretly disclosing her military weakness, and its ignoble occasion; thus repudiating, in advance, the vaunt of her Senator, who finds strength and gratulation in Slavery rather than in Freedom. It was during the war that she thus shrived herself, on bended knees, in the confessional of the Continental Congress. But the same ignominious confession was made, some time after the war, in open debate, on the floor of Congress, by Mr. Burke, a Representative from South Carolina:—

‘There is not a gentleman on the floor who is a stranger to the feeble situation of our State, when we entered into the war to oppose the British power. We were not only without money, without an army ’