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Revolution Drawing Nigh
Source: A History of Marlboro County: With
Traditions and Sketches of Numerous Families,
1897
So much has been written of
the causes which led to a rupture and separation of the colonies
from the mother country, the story so well told, that but little
space need be given it here. It is proper, however, that the part
our fathers took in the quarrel and fight should be remembered by
their posterity. The concessions which had been made to the people
in the back country of South Carolina, as it was then called, in
allowing representation in the provincial assembly, and allowing
district courts, had allayed excitement, produced a good degree of
satisfaction, promoted prosperity and induced the hope that yet
other wrongs in the course of time would be redresed and larger
liberties secured. But some of the other colonies were not so
fortunate in their local governments. Hence, as one encroachment
after another was made upon what all considered their just rights as
citizens of Great Britain, these local oppressions intensified the
opposition to anything like oppression from the parent government,
and the common sympathy existing among the various colonies bound
them together, so that the sufferings of Massachusetts or Virginia
were felt in Carolina or Georgia. An insult offered these they were
ready to resent, and long before the first blood shed upon the
heights of Lexington fired the American heart and summoned the whole
Atlantic slope to arms, there was a general feeling of unrest,
grevious complaints and remonstrances throughout the country. As
early as 1765 the passage of the memorable Stamp Act aroused the
colonies and when it was proposed to hold a ''congress of deputies
from the several colonies" to protest against usurpation, South
Carolina was among the first outside of New England to respond to
the proposition, and was behind no province in manifesting an
intelligent spirit of resistance to every other measure of
oppression which followed in portentous succession. And when the
taxed tea was thrown over board in Boston Harbor the whole country
felt the alarm. A public meeting in Boston appealed to the other
colonies to stop importing from Britain.
Charleston heard
the summons and appealed to the people to assemble in that city, the
seat of British authority in the province, on the 6th day of July,
1774. This call met a hearty response. The district of Cheraw was
ably represented by Col. Powell, who, for several years, had been
its honored member in the Provincial Assembly. A large committee was
appointed to provide for the public safety, which in the fall issued
a call for a "Provincial Congress," which convened January 11, 1775.
The proceedings of the Continental Congress were reviewed, delegates
appointed to meet those from the other colonies, a new committee of
general safety appointed, and all such regulations made as the
exigencies of the times demanded. In this revolutionary congress
Cheraw district was largely represented, and among the names are
several prominent men of Marlboro. These made up the Cheraw
delegation: Gabriel Powell, Claudius Pegues, Henry Wm. Harrington,
Alex McIntosh, Samuel Wise and George Pawley.
But perhaps the
most intelligent expression of sentiment which can be had at this
day of the patriotic sentiments of the people of this region is
found in the presentments of the grand juries of the day. The
population was sparse, and scattered over a wide territory—few
public meetings could be held, none largely attended, but these
juries, composed of representative men from various sections, put
upon oath, might be reasonably expected to voice the general
sentiment and feeling of the people.
The liberty is taken,
therefore, to quote largely from the charge of his honor, Judge Wm.
Henry Drayton, at Long Bluff, at the November term of court, 1774.
Judge Drayton had but lately received his appointment. He was born
in South Carolina in 1742, was but little past thirty-two, but
gifted and learned, was destined to fill a distinguished place in
the annals of his struggling country; now upon the Bench and later
in the councils of the Continental Congress, he adorned every
position which he was called to fill, and when his brief life ended
in Philadelphia, while attending the Congress of 1779, South
Carolina grieved as a mother for her son.
Let us imagine
this splendid son of Carolina in the glow of his young manhood,
appearing for the first time upon the bench at Long Bluff,
addressing his countrymen upon the interests of the hour. After a
concise statement of their general duties, he said: "By as much as
you prefer freedom to slavery, by so much ought you to prefer a
glorious death to servitude, and to hazard everything to endeavor to
maintain that rank which is so gloriously pre-eminent above all
other nations, you ought to endeavor to preserve it, not only for
its inestimable value, and from a reverence to our ancestry from
whom we received it, but from a love to our children to whom we are
bound by every consideration to deliver down this legacy, the most
valuable that ever was or ever can be delivered to posterity—and
such are the distinguishing characteristics of this legacy, which
may God, of His infinite goodness and mercy long preserve to us, and
graciously continue to our posterity.
But without our pious
and unwearied endeavors to preserve these blessings it is folly and
presumption to hope for a continuance of them. Hence, in order to
stimulate your exertions in favor of your civil liberties, which
protect your religious rights, instead of discoursing- to you of the
laws of other States, and comparing them to our own, allow me to
tell you what your civil liberties are, and to charge you,
which I do in the most solemn manner, to hold them dearer than your
lives; a lesson and charge at all times proper from a Judge, but
particularly so at this crisis, when America is in one general and
genous commotion touching this truly important point. It is
unnecessary for me to draw any other character of their liberties
than that great line by which they are distinguished; and happy is
it for the subject that those liberties can be marked in so easy and
in so distinguishing a manner.
And this is the
distinguishing character: English people can not be taxed, nay, they
can not be bound by any law, unless by their consent, expressed by
themselves, or by their representatives of their own election. This
colony was settled by English subjects; by a people from England
herself; a people who brought over with them, who planted in this
colony, and who transmitted to their posterity the invaluable rights
of Englishmen—rights which no time, no contract, no climate can
diminish. Thus possessed of such rights, it is of the most serious
concern that you strictly execute those regulations which have
arisen from such a parentage, and to which you have given the
authority of laws, by having given your constitutional consent that
they should operate as laws; for by your not executing what those
laws require, you would weaken the force, and would show, I may
almost say, a treasonable contempt for those constitutional rights
out of which your laws arise, and which you ought to defend and
support at the hazard of your lives. Hence, by all the ties which
mankind hold most dear and sacred; your tenderness to your
posterity; your reverence to your ancestors; your love to your own
interests; by the lawful obligations of your oath, I charge you to
do your duty; to maintain the laws, the rights, the constitution of
your country, even at the hazard of your lives and fortunes. Some
courtly Judges style themselves the King's servants —a style which
sounds harshly in my ears, in as much as the being a servant implies
obedience to the orders of the master, and such Judges might
possibly think that in the present situation of American affairs
this charge is inconsistent with my duty to the King and a trusty
officer under the constitution, when 1 boldly declare the law to the
people and instruct them in their civil rights. Indeed, you
gentlemen of the grand jury can not properly comprehend your duty
and your great obligation to perform it unless you know those civil
rights from which those duties spring and. by knowing the value of
these rights, thence learn your obligation to perform these
duties."
The quotation is lengthy, but it is not all the
eloquence and patriotism which rang out in the courtroom. It is
enough to show how the love for liberty consumed the judge and
kindled a flame in the bosoms of the people. And the final
presentment of the jury was a fitting response to the stirring words
uttered by the judge. After a brief report of local matters the
paper said: "We present as a grievance of the first magnitude the
right claimed by the British Parliament to tax us, and by their acts
bind us in all cases whatsoever. When we reflect on our other
grievances they all appear trifling in comparison with this; for if
we may be taxed, imprisoned and deprived of life by the force of
edicts to which neither we nor our constitutional representatives
have ever assented, no slavery can be more abject than ours. We are,
however, sensible that we have a better security for our lives, our
liberties and fortunes than the mere will of the Parliament of Great
Britain; and are fully convinced that we can not be constitutionally
taxed but by representatives of our own election or bound by any
laws than those to which they have assented.
This right of
being exempted from all laws but those enacted with the consent of
representatives of our own election we deem so essential to our
freedom and so engrafted in our constitution that we are determined
to defend it at the hazard of our lives and fortunes; and we
earnestly request that this presentment may be laid before our
constitutional representatives, the common House of Assembly of this
colony, that it may be known how much we prize our freedom and how
resolved we are to preserve it. We recommend that these presentments
be published in the gazettes of the Province." The above was signed
and sealed by "Alexander McIntosh, the foreman; Henry W. Harrington,
Thomas Ayers," and seventeen others.
These were bold, manly
sentiments, coming from plain honest men, and although largely
inspired by the stirring address of the judge, fast coming to be an
idol in the hearts of his people, yet these fearless words but
voiced the sentiment of a large part of the population, as the
proceedings of the next term of court manifested. Instead of a
Drayton to fire their hearts, with his eloquent appeals, "to all
they held dearest," at this term the ermine was worn by Justice
Gregory. He was fresh from England and loyal in the highest degree,
and possibly one of the "style," who, as Drayton tersely put it
regarded themselves "servants of the king." The grand jury made the
usual presentments.
They added these words: "We present as
an enormous grievance the power exercised by the British parliament
of taxing and making laws binding upon the American Colonies in all
cases whatsoever; such power being subversive of the most
inestimable rights of British subjects, that of being taxed by their
own consent, given by their representatives in General Assembly, and
that of trial by jury, both which are evidently inherent in every
British-American, and of which no power on earth can legally deprive
them. We, well knowing the importance to these rights, in securing
to us our liberties, lives and estates, and conceiving it to be
every man's indispensable duty to transmit them to his posterity,
are fully determined to defend them at the hazard of our lives and
fortunes." But this outspoken, resolute declaration, along with more
of the same spirit and tenor, which reflected to some extent, by
implication at least, upon the integrity of the judge, was ordered
to be "quashed"; yet it all came out in the public gazettes of the
day, with the signatures of sixteen good men, such as Thomas Lide,
foreman; Sam'l Wise, Claudius Pegues, William Pouncey, Benjamin
Rogers, Thomas Bingham and others. Few, if any, of the early
declarations of rights were bolder than these set forth under the
solemnities of law and under oath, by the patriotic fathers who
lived upon the Pee Dee. May the sons and daughters in all time be
worthy of their relationship to these "Old Cheraws."
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