6 LETTER HONOURABLE JOHN C, CALHOUN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ROBERT Y. HAYNE, SENATOR OF THE UNITED STATES, GEORGE M 4 DUFFIE, OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, AND JAMES HAMILTON, JR., GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. BY THOMAS S. GRIIVIKE . PHILADELPHIA : PRINTED BY THOMAS KITE & CO. 1832. IOAN STACK TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, THIS LETTER IS DEDICATED, With an inflexible confidence in their good sense, love of order, and unchangeable devotion to the Union, by THOMAS S. GRIMKE. Charleston, 22d February, 1832. This letter was originally intended to be published in a newspaper, but circumstances, over which the author had no control, prevented its publication in that form, early in January, as at first contemplated, LETTER, &c SOUTH CAROLINA, CHARLESTON, 26th December, 183L To the Honourable JOHN C. CALHOUN, Vice President of the United States, ROBERT Y. HAYNE, Senator of the United States*, GEORGE M DuFFiE, of the House of Representatives of the United States, and JAMES HAMILTON, JR., Governor of the State of South Carolina. YOUR equal in love of country, though your inferior in station and influence, I venture to address you. I do it thus publicly, in conformity with usage : not, indeed, under the sanc- lion of an oath, or with the authority of office ; but from a sense of duty to you and to my country. I address you thus publicly ; because I hold it to be the right of the citizen, thus to speak with his ruler, face to face, in the presence of their country. May I be pardoned for the opinion, that there is no one in Carolina, who can do it so appropriately as myself. A private citizen, free from the ambition that seeks political power, and a stranger to the enjoyments of political distinction, I have no ends to answer for party or self. This letter is indeed altogether my personal act, on my sole responsibility. I have not even consulted a friend, much less political leaders ; nor have I made known my intention to a single person in Ca rolina : nor to any one out of it, but the person to whom this letter is committed. (4) I trust that I shall be influenced in nothing that I utter, by sentiments of disrespect, by feelings of unkindness. If I know my own heart, I have banished from it all that would dishonour m3 or justly offend you. And if there be aught in these co lumns, unworthy of the Christian, the patriot, and the gentle man, I ask forgiveness, not so much of you, as of my country. I look up to you, as invested with a large share of her power and dignity : and I am unjust to my better judgment, if I do not venerate the station, and respect the officer. Such, at least, is the principle, which I have established as my landmark. I shall not pause to portray the pain and mortification I have experienced, at the course which you have pursued. Nor shall I dwell on the pride and satisfaction, which I enjoyed for seve ral years, in recognizing you as my compatriots, both as Ame ricans and Carolinians. How just that pride, how pure and exalted that satisfaction ! the memory of the past abundantly attests. The present, a mourner over the faded brightness of the past, would be the victim of despair, but for that unquench able hope, which trusts to the unknown future. O ! that that future, unsearchable to human eyes, may yet have in store for you, that glory and usefulness in the cause of our country, of which the past, so soon overshadowed, was but the day-spring. I at least dare to hope, that you may again rank among the most honoured and valuable of our public men. Others are involved in the calamity which has befallen you, but they are scarcely a national loss. I speak not to them ; for they are but the invisible satellites of your superior station and influence. Without YOU, THEY are and can do nothing. All the respon sibility, then, of the past and the present, is YOURS. Yours are the master-minds, the master-hands. Theirs are the hilltops, obscure, or lost in the distance to the nation s eye. Yours are the mountain summits, once glittering with the beacons of glad tidings, " shining into distant lands :" now, in the estima tion of too many of your countrymen, altars of revenge, "As tho the snake-tressed, sister torchbearers, " Th Eumenides, from the Tartarian depths " Were leaping on from hill to hill, on each "Leaving the tracks of their flame-dropping feet. (5) The eyes of your country are again upon you : those eyes, which in former years gazed on you with pride and admiration in the broad light of public life, and followed you with the ten der rejoicings of a parent s love, to the calm and amiable re tirement of home. How is that countenance fallen ! whose expression so recently bespoke confidence, gratitude, and exul tation. As yet, indeed, there is no frown of hatred on that brow, no sentence of banishment from her presence on those lips. But, how do those eyes beam with mild rebuke, with mournful indignation, with subdued amazement. How does she look upon you, and as she unrols the FAREWELL of WASH INGTON, and points to its letters of light, and its lessons of truth and wisdom, "how do those lips quiver with intense emo tion, how are those eyes fixed upon you, with a calm yet so lemn severity, even in tears ! Arise ! for you are in the awful presence of your country. Arise ! for the place whereon you stand is holy ground. Arise ! for your country is your accuser. Look up to that venerable, majestic face, not with the bold and haughty bear ing of the self-righteous, but with the humility which becomes a child before the accusing eye of his parent. To the charge which she brings against you, listen, with reverence and devout attention, not with the scornfulness of the disobedient, or the reckless levity of the ungrateful. " MY SONS, so lately my glory and delight, how have you filled my eyes with tears, and my soul with sorrow. On you had I lavished the love of a grateful, the admiration of a dis criminating, the honour of a just parent. Yours was the pro mise of dignity more elevated, of rewards more rich and endu ring. On your patriotism and intelligence, on the enlargement of your affections, and the comprehensiveness of your views, I had reposed with the pride and security of a parent s faith. I turned to the past and behold it was a fair and goodly scene. I looked on the present and it was the glorious fruit of that delightful past. I gazed on the future, and my soul leaped with gladness at visions of more devoted patriotism, of more exalted usefulness. I rejoiced, without fear and trembling ; for a prophet only could have revealed, this present is that future. How have the beauty and glory of that prospect van- (6) ished ! You are the authors of my calamity and affliction. My sons ! give me back the peace of mind you have destroyed ! Restore me my hopes, and receive again a parent s blessing. " I shall not charge you, my sons, like many of my chil dren, with sentiments unworthy of your allegiance to me, and your attachment to them. I cast from me the reproach of un hallowed ambition, of dishonourable intrigues, of blasted expec tations. I tread under my feet the suspicion, that you could rejoice at the unsheathed sword, and glory in the battle-field, as vindicators of your opinions. I have not a prophet s eye to pierce your hearts, and tell whether you are indeed as to me, in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. I trust you still ; but not with the cheerful hopes, the cordial affections, the generous confidence of former years. Hearken, then, to the instructive lessons of your country. Hearken to her ac cusing voice, calm yet firm, dignified though severe. " Mine is a land of family institutions and brotherly ties, of ancient friendship, glory and danger. It is the land of regu lated rights and dependent interests, of rational freedom and temperate discussion. Mine is a land of confidence, peace and love, of reason and justice, of mutual forbearance and forgive ness. It is the land, in which duty and wisdom inexorably de mand, that if reviled, you revile not again, that you return good for evil, and blessing for cursing. Mine is a land, in which no citizen is worthy to be called my son, who is not ever ready, in my cause, and for my sake to say, with the patriot Athenian, to the insolent, the unrighteous, the tyrannical bro ther, Strike, but hear me. " Mine is not the land of ancient feuds, prejudices and inju ries. My children never have been strangers to each other : and God has ordained, if they be wise and faithful, that they never shall be. Mine is not a land in which the sceptre of the tyrant or the sword of the conqueror has compelled into unna tural and violent union, aliens in religion and sentiments, foreigners in laws and institutions. Theirs is the brotherhood of nature, the holy bonds of birth. All are of one blood, or the adopted children of my affections. Mine, then, is not a land for jealousy and suspicion, for prejudice and passion, for con tumely and ridicule. Mine is no land for the uncharitableness of the heart, the scornfulness of the brow, or invective of CM the lips. Nor is this the land for arrogance and boasting, for resentment and hatred, for threats and defiance, for violence in thoughts, words or deeds. Enemies to my peace, prosperity, freedom and happiness, be they for ever banished from the hearts of my children and the counsel of their servants. " Mine is the land of truth and duty, of self-sacrifices, full of purity, magnanimity and love. But truth, and duty, and self- sacrifice must perish, if my servants will not acknowledge them as the guide-stars of their public ministry. Truth is mighty, and it must, and will prevail ; but never while deri sion and contempt, menace and violence, are in the hearts and on the lips of my children. Truth is mighty, and it shall pre vail over selfishness and injustice, fraud and sophistry, preju dice and ingratitude ; if the gifted and the trusted among my sons, are eminent for discretion, magnanimity and moderation, no less than for talents and knowledge. True wisdom is dis creet, dignified, dispassionate. True love is enlightened, fore thoughtful, beneficent arid candid. Such is the wisdom of the American statesman : such the love of the American patriot. Such a statesman, such a patriot, is the property of each for the sake of all, of all for the sake of each. " And what are his great duties, and what is the spirit in which they are to be discharged ? Those duties and that spirit are these " He must resolve, and abide by that resolution with inflexi ble constancy, never to harbour a thought, nor utter a word, nor do a deed, that may, by any possibility, suggest the opi nion, that the Union can ever be abandoned. The Union must and shall be perpetual. It is the very law of their being to all my public servants, that this must be habitually their thought and feeling. Without this generous persuasion, this living faith, they are unworthy of me and unfit for my service. They who have not the courage to look upon the FUTURE with this cheering and steadfast conviction, are not to be trusted with the holy and responsible duties of the PRESENT. " The next great duty of my servants is to regard the Con stitution of that Union as the sacred covenant of my first-born, sealed with their precious blood, the testimony of their faith, hallowed and irrevocable as the plighted troth of the marriage bond. Their duty is to regard it, as the very gift of heaven (8) itself; not indeed by the ministry of angels, the inspiration of prophets, or the miracles of Apostles ; but by the ministry of a band of brothers, fellow-servants of an all wise and benevolent Providence. To believe that their country is ever under the overruling protection of that Providence, is a cardinal article in the political creed of my children. THEIR CONSTITUTION is THE SHIELD OF THAT PROTECTION. Under its broad shadow are peace at home and safety abroad : and be it their trust and resolve, their children s children, through generations without number, shall be secured in this defence. To abide by that Constitution, as expounded by the wise and good who framed it, and to acknowledge the obligation of laws, clothed with all the forms and sanctions of that charter, till reversed by consti tutional authority, these are infallible tests of the wisdom of statesmen, of the love of patriots, and of the enlightened ^fidelity of good citizens. However honest may be a different opinion, however deliberate and confident an opposite judgment, the mi nority will submit if they are wise and good men, even to unconstitutional laws, till reversed according to the known and established order of the government. Without such a founda tion, there can be no stability, no security. With it all is safe : all must be harmonious, prosperous and happy. " Another leading duty of public men, is to combine with a just and highminded independence, a generous respect for the opinions of others. Whilst he acknowledges the right and duty of each to judge for himself, let him never forget that diversity of opinion is at once the lot and the privilege of hu manity, let him learn, then, to bear contradiction with the good sense of a wise man, with the temper of a good man. He must submit to be overruled, time after time, in his favourite opi nions, without the petulence that degrades, or the violence that dishonours virtue. Even if he believe the rights of the people assailed, and their interests hazarded, still he must com mand himself, if he hopes to convince and persuade others. Whilst he acknowledges the right of the majority to declare the understanding of the people in the exercise of their judg ment, and the will of the people in the exercise of their power, he must respect that will and that understanding thus declared, as the law of the land, till reversed by the authority of the peo ple. But, above all, on questions which have divided the purest patriots and ablest statesmen of his country, it is his duty, (9) if in the minority, whilst he retains both his independence and his opinions, to admit candidly and act openly and cheerfully on the admission, It is AT LEAST AS PROBABLE, that the majori- ty are right as myself. But power, and the responsibility of the measure are their sS This becomes a more solemn and mo mentous duty, when the practice of the government and the acquiescence of the people are in favour of the majority. Such diffidence is honourable in the wisest, and lovely in the best of men. It is that humility which is content with the faithful discharge of duty, and rejoices, that in the opinion of his coun try, she has a host of servants more worthy than himself. " Yet another duty is enjoined on the public servants of my people. I require them to discountenance in every form COM BINATIONS OR SOCIETIES, whose object is to wield a power, un known to the laws and institutions of their country. To keep the people and all the instituted authorities, as. far as possible, within known and established lines, and to bring into the sys tem no extraneous influences, unknown to the Constitution, are the wise precepts both of experience and sagacity. Such influences are unworthy of a majority ; for they deserve not. to rule, if they cannot prevail without them. They are danger ous in the lands of a minority ; for if they cannot attain power without such* means, they can never succeed fairly and virtu ously. They are still more dangerous in the hands of a for mer majority, when driven from office, and converted into a turbulent, and reckless faction. They are eminently danger ous in the hands of the LEADERS of that faction, recently the chiefs of a triumphant majority, now incensed, ambitious and popular, talented and eloquent. If their object be to aid the law, that law, when faithfully administered, is strong enough without them. If their object be to embarrass, intimidate, or resist the constituted authorities, theirs is the spirit of rebellion and treason. Their success may be the victory of PARTY, but will be dishonour if not ruin to their COUNTRY. " There is another great duty exacted of all my public ser vants. It is to believe and teach that the people are capable of self-government ; but only through the medium of rulers. Yet no system can avail, unless those rulers are wise and discreet, magnanimous, liberal and candid. To be such is the duty of all and each of my servants : and the delinquency of all the B rest cannot extenuate, but enhances the guilt of the last who betrays his trust. Let him be another Abdiel, unpolluted by corruption, unawed by power, unseduced by ambition, unpro voked by indignity. How glorious his title, if he stand the only faithful ! How infamous, if he fall the last of the faith less! " Another leading duty is required. It is to believe, and acknowledge with a fervent and stedfast faith in its truth, that THE PEOPLE CAN BE TRUSTED. He is unworthy of the name of American patriot, who is not ready to stake life, fortune, and sacred honour, on this truth. He deserves not the name of American statesman, who does not give to this sentiment the unwavering confidence of his soul, and act up to it cordially, fearlessly, undoubtingly, in every word and deed of his public life. He must belive that my people desire to do that which is just and right, liberal and impartial. He must believe that they prize uniformity in laws, no less than in rights, and equali ty of national blessings and opportunities, no less than of na tional burthens and dangers. He must believe, that they scorn unfair advantages ; that they detest sophistry and fraud ; that they abhor, in all their forms, usurpation and oppression. He must believe, if my people either do or permit tlnfrt which is dishonourable or unjust, THEY ARE BLAMELESS. The duty, then, of the private citizen and still more of the public man, is to bear with them, not doubting that temper and discretion, magnanimity, candour and moderation, will lead them back to the path of duty. He who believes not these things, and acts not upon them, with an earnest and constant faith, has been born in vain in this THE ONLY LAND OF THE PEOPLE. " I demand of every public man another prominent duty : to distinguish between the RULER and the PEOPLE : and to honour those, however, unworthy, for the sake of these. It is equally the duty of my servants, not to ascribe to the people, the neg ligence, folly, or neglect of their rulers ; but to believe, and to act faithfully and cordially on the belief, that such deeds are sins against, not sins of, the people. Hence springs the duty of the patriot statesman. This duty lies not in returning like for like, insult for provocation, injury for oppression, threats for injus tice. His duty is to treat his fellow-rulers, though corrupt and fraudulent, though illmannered and illtempered, not in the spirit { 11 ) of their sentiment and conduct, but in that better spirit which looks beyond them, and mourns over the people, whom they have neglected or betrayed. His duty is to appeal from those rulers to that people, openly, calmly, firmly : to appeal in the halls which they have dishonoured by their folly, or polluted by their guilt 4 to appeal in all the various forms of social inter course and political influence : to appeal through the press, emphatically beyond every thing else, the property of the peo ple. Let him thus appeal, and he dares not doubt, that fidelity, temper and perseverance will command success. Let him not thus appeal ; let him substitute anger for moderation, threats for persuasion, and violence for argument ; and he sins against his own soul, and curses the people he has sworn to bless. " Another chief obligation is laid upon all. The variety of climate, soil and production, which distinguish the spacious in heritance of my children, is admirably fitted to be an inestima ble blessing, a strong bond of union. It may become the fruit ful source of jea ousy, dissention and separation. The prize is invaluable, the danger imminent and ever present. Wisdom, moderation, candour, generosity, can alone harmonise that diversity of interests, can reconcile the discontented, and heal the wounds, inflicted by ignorance or selfishness, by the corrupt or the unjust. But, even the foreigner, fresh from the trials and perils of liberty in Europe, must know that menace and in vective, anger, jealousy and derision, never can conciliate that variety of interests ; but will aggravate every evil, which may arise from it. What language, then, can paint the character of that American statesman, who appeals to separate interests, as landmarks of national policy ; who strives to influence the sentiments and conduct of any by sectional considerations ; who teaches brothers for these reasons, to distrust one another ; and labour to convince them by argument, and persuade them by eloquence, that they have been insulted, injured, oppressed by their brethren from such motives. And does not the patriot statesman see, that his appeal should not be to the passions, prejudices and sufferings of the injured ; but to the good sense, justice and candour of all the rest of my people ? Let him despair, and he is unworthy to maintain that appeal, before the most powerful and august, the most impartial and magnani- ( 12) mous of human tribunals, THE PEOPLE. He must fail. He is self-conquered. But let him go forth, calm and resolute, con fident in the purity of his motives, and the righteousness of his cause, with a religious, unwavering trust in my people, and, if he deserve victory and faint not in his labour of love, he shall prevail. Yes, he shall prevail ; for truth and wisdom, mercy and justice are his weapons : and against them not even the gates of hell shall prevail. " There is still another great duty laid upon my people and all their public servants to cultivate the SPIRIT OF PEACE. How little does he comprehend the character and destiny of American Institutions, who has not learned, THAT WAR is FOREVER BANISH ED FROM MY LAND. The sword shall never be unsheathed to shed a brothers blood. If the government, ordained by all to bless and protect each, be unjust and oppressive to some, RESISTANCE BY ARMS would partake of the guilt of murder, of the folly and madness of suicide. No controversy between the nation and the states, or between the states themselves, shall ever be set tled by the sword. In such a cause, the warrior would be stained with the double guilt of the rebel and the fratricide. This art, with all its chivalry of spirit, and all its splendor of equipment, would be a loathsome and hideous spectacle. The blood that he sheds, would be unquenchable fire to his soul : an ineffaceable brand of honour on his name. PEACE is THE UN CHANGEABLE, UNIVERSAL LAW OF MY LAND. It must be indeli bly stamped on the hearts of every ruler, and of all my people. The public man, in whom this cardinal maxim is not an article of inflexible faith, is unworthy of his age and nation. Never shall HE wear the noblest wreath of the American ruler, that of the Christian patriot and statesman. " The last great duty of my children is preeminently such* It is the golden rule of life, the whole duty of the good citizen; for it is the very fountain of light, security and happiness. It binds every private individual, throughout my land, as with the sanctity and force of a brother s ties. It binds every ruler as with adamantine bonds, when, in the presence of his country, he calls on the God of truth, to attest his sincerity. LOVE ONE ANOTHER, is that golden rule. Love one another with a frank, constant, elevated affection : with an attachment, undisturbed by selfishness or jealousy, by levity or passion. Love one ano ther fervently, in spite of injuries, provocation and injustice. ( 13 ) These are equally the lot of communities and individuals : and he is unwise, who does not know that in such case, the obligation of love becomes stronger and more sacred. He is eminently unwise, who does not know that the love which can forbear and forgive, is the only safeguard of equal rights and interests, a fountain, utterly inexhaustible, of mutual blessings and common enjoyments. Without it, my people cannot be united, free, prosperous and happy. Whoever, then, whether a citizen or a public man, shall teach or encourage, in word or in deed, even the least of my children not thus to love one another, may be fit for the turbulent republics of antiquity ; but his heart is far from me, and alien to the regulated freedom, the noble confi dence, the frank and magnanimous wisdom, which become Americans. He is a foreigner in the land of his birth: a stranger at the very hearth-stone of his fathers. " Such, my sons, are the great landmarks of duty to all my children. You are among the eminently favoured of those chil dren : favourites of nature, in the wealth of intellectual endow ments : favourites of fortune, in the auspicious incidents of your public career : favourites of your country, in the gratitude she felt, and the applause she bestowed. I respect your since- rky, I honour your zeal, I acknowledge your talents, patriot ism and services. Grant that you have acted honestly, fear lessly, disinterestedly. Grant that the people of your immedi ate home have been neglected, injured, oppressed : and that folly or ignorance, fraud or corruption, or all of them combined, have been the prolific causes. Grant that you have reasoned, and expostulated, and protested in vain : that my people them selves have been slow to listen, and still slower to believe : that the majority of their rulers have heard with disdain, or turned away with indifference. With the landmarks of wisdom and patriotism, I have set before you, what then was your duty 1 That duty lay like a path-way of light, amidst those landmarks. He who ran might read. Even the wayfaring man could not err therein. That duty was an alternative. You ought to have acknowledged that majority of patriots and statesmen, who differed from you, to be as probably right as yourselves : and as the power and responsibility were theirs, not yours, it was your part, with the humility which belongs only to the truly wise, great and good, to acquiesce in theirs, as the autho- (14) rized, if not the better judgment. Or, if you believed that the subject had not yet been sufficiently discussed, and still was not thoroughly understood, either by your fellow citizens or your fellow rulers, then was your duty equally plain. Perseverance in opposition was that duty ; but perseverance, in the true spirit of patriot statesmen : resolute, yet calm and dignified ; uncompromising, yet respectful and conciliatory ; argumenta tive and eloquent, but without a look or a word of anger, in dignity or menace. These were the immortal weapons which became me and you : this the noble warfare which would have honoured the glorious dead, would have vanquished the living, and have challenged the gratitude and admiration of posterity. Gifted as you are, how must I mourn over the error of your choice ! " Rejecting these, the only alternatives of a wise and high- minded patriotism, you have trodden a path, which inferior men might have selected, without amazement in their supe riors, or danger to their country. You have not realized the highest duty, the noblest devotion, the purest sacrifice, which you owed to your country. That duty was to soothe, not to ex asperate ; to calm, not to agitate ; to rely on the influence of reason, not of passion ; of attachment not of jealousies ; of manly, candid sense, not of prejudice. That devotion was to have cast yourselves between those rulers arid your country, your whole country, the people of the Union. There should you have pleaded as became those who felt that the peace of that country, the integrity of that Union, yea, the very desti ny of my people were all at stake. That sacrifice was, in the patriot spirit of magnanimity, moderation, and wisdom, to have impressed, most fervently and vehemently, on your immediate brethren, that although injured and oppressed by the common rulers, as you may have believed, through ignorance or ne glect, through corruption, or the insolence of power, THE PEO PLE OF THE UNION WERE GUILTLESS. In the people of the SOUTH, where the danger lay, as you must admit, you should have cultivated, more anxiously, so lemnly and eloquently than ever, love to their brethren of the north, a just reliance on their good sense, an inflexible confi dence in their good faith. You should have laboured, with re doubled energy and zeal, to strengthen the bonds of union at (15) the SOUTH ; because you believed that the folly, or the igno rance, or the injustice of the national rulers had endangered it there. Your duty was to have been mediators wise, discreet, calm, fearless, between the oppressor and the oppressed ; to have summoned them, accuser and accused, before the only tribunal, invested with authority to judge between them THE PEOPLE. You have committed the error, the hardest to be forgiven YOU HAVE DISTRUSTED THE GOOD SENSE, THE JUS TICE, THE MAGNANIMITY OF THE PEOPLE. You have excited and agitated the injured against their brethren ; you have sown the seeds of passion, jealousy, disgust; you have made the souls of ten thousand of my children, familiar with thoughts of resistance, tumult and civil war ; you have taught them, that allegiance to me is a question of expediency, not of high and holy duty ; you have endangered the peace of my people, and the integrity of their Union , you have sanctioned the leprous senti ment, it is time to calculate the value of the Union. " Tell me riot that you have loved me with all the energy of passion, with all the purity and fidelity of a martyr s faith. Tell me not, that you have dedicated on my altar, all the affections of the heart, and all the powers of the understanding. Tell me not, that on that altar, you are ready to sacrifice fortune and happiness, power and distinction, yea, life itself. MINE is THE ALTAR OF PEACE AND LOVE. The hand that is not ever ready to clasp a brother s hand, brings an impious gift. The lips that have curled, and denounced, and threatened a brother, are touched with no live-coal from that altar. The soul that is the habitation of suspicion, and wrath, and contumely, has upon it the plague-spot. IN WHAT SPIRIT HAVE YOU LOVED 1 Let your words and your actions, and all their host of followers, give the answer. O ! when the troubled thoughts, which dwell in your souls, were entering there, that some guardian angel had cast his scroll before you to stay the severity of your judgment * Arise executioner ! Tell me not of your motives. I arraign them not. I JUDGE THE TREE BY ITS FRUITS. Could fountains of sweet waters have sent forth the bitter streams, that tra verse the land, scattering dismay, and jealousy, and hatred, amidst the paradise of my people? TELL ME, ARE THESE THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF A CHILD S FIDELITY, OF A BROTHER S LOVE ? " O my sons ! what a lot was yours, how fortunate, how en- ( 16) viable ! O what an opportunity have you lost, of ranking your* selves among the noblest and best of men ! To you was offered the crown of disinterested magnanimity, of calm, elevated, com prehensive wisdom ; of a patriot devotion, worthy of Washing ton himself. In an evil hour, my sons, my sons, you dashed it from you for ever. Yours was the power to heal, to save, to bless. The past of your lives attested at once your capacity, your glory, and your virtue. The present was rich in the con fidence and gratitude of all my children. The respect, the love, the admiration of all had invested you with an authority, venerable for its purity and intelligence, powerful in its disin terestedness and benevolence. That authority was invincible in your hands, HAD YOU BEEN COURAGEOUS AND FAITHFUL TO THAT TRUST. That authority was potent to expose the sophis try of the cunning, and the arts of the selfish ; to vanquish the unjust, and break the rod of the oppressor. But all its power lay IN THE LAW OF LOVE. Ye knew it not; for the fruits of your deeds plead trumpet-tongued against you. Ye knew it not ; but erased that law from your hearts. Ye knew it not ; but have struck from the souls of thousands of my people THAT LAW OF LOVE, and have written there THE LAW OF VIOLENCE. " O ! what an error was this, in the patriot and the states man ! O ! what an error in the patriot, not of a dark and cruel heathenism, but of Christianity, the religion of light and love ! ! what an error in the statesman, not of a warlike democracy, or a ferocious despotism, but of America, the land of peace, the refuge from religious and political intolerance, the heritage of brothers ! O my sons ! what an error was this in YOU among the most honoured and beloved of my patriots, among the most eminent and useful of my statesmen ! Your country is your accuser. My people are your judges. Pure, and right eous, and merciful are they. God send you a safe deliverance." Such, my respected fellow citizens and honoured rulers, have 1 imagined to be the thoughts of our country. Such do I so lemnly believe to be the sentiments of the vast majority of the people of the Union. Such you know to be the opinions and feelings of thousands among the good and wise of Carolina. But a few years since, I beheld in you the model of patriot statesmen, an honour to the name of American, even more (17) than of Carolinian. But a few years since, and yours was the love and the confidence of all ; for you were the children of Washington. How changed the scene, even you must know. Confidence has yielded to distrust ; and respect for talents, sta tion and influence, have scarcely survived the banishment of admiration and love. If I have correctly interpreted the senti ments of our country, and of that be our country the judge, I cannot disguise the depth and sincerity of my regrets. They, indeed, can avail neither you, nor my country. They cannot rescue her from the evils that have flowed from your words and deeds ; nor deliver you from the certainty and severity of her sentence. Whilst I deprecate the whole spirit and tenor of your course, I desire solemnly and anxiously to declare, that I sit not in judgment on your motives. Your motives are between you and your God. They are your property. But your words and your actions are the property of your country. They are my property, as a fellow-citizen ; but to be dealt with, in the fear of God, in love to my country, in respect for you. I have spoken, 1 trust, no otherwise than becomes the urbanity of the gentleman, and the conscientiousness of the Christian, the fide lity of a brother, and the frankness of a freeman. I have spoken, I trust, only as became the advocate and vindicator of the law of love. But if, under the influence of feelings, grave even to painfulness, and struck with almost a religious awe, I have sinned against that Holy Law, be you my accusers, and our country my judge. With a lively gratitude for the past, and a deep regret for the present, I subscribe myself, Respectfully, Your Fellow Citizen, THOMAS S. GRIMKE . 10 8 4 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. LD21A-40m-3, 72 TT .General Library (Qll73810)476-A-32 University of California Berkeley U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES CDT3553TE7