SOUTH CAROLINA 



329 



taxation was not felt by the southerners, and their rela- 

 tions to the home government had been tolerable. There 

 were many reasons why the state should refrain from 

 making common cause with other colonies, when war was 

 the consequence. But love of liberty and devotion to 

 principles touching human rights and liberties prevailed, 

 and when the actual contest began at Lexington and Con- 

 cord, in spite of the strong royalist following. South Car- 

 olina ranked herself beside the Puritan Commonwealth. 

 As Eamsay says, '' All statutes of allegiance were consid- 

 ered as repealed on the plains of Lexington, and the laws 

 of self-preservation left to operate in full force." The 

 Provincial Congress was immediately summoned, and 

 great were the objects brought before it. The president Henry 

 of this important body, be it remembered, was Henry Patriot 

 Laurens, one of the French Protestants. When on the 

 second day of the meeting it was unanimously resolved 

 that an association was necessarj^, it was that same great 

 citizen, a Huguenot, who drew up the following associa- 

 tion and put his name as the first to it : 



The actual commencement of hostilities against this continent by the 

 British troops, in the bloody scene on the 19th of April last, near Bos- 

 ton — the increase of arbitrary impositions from a wicked and despotic 

 ministry — and the dread of insurrections in the colonies — are causes 

 sufficient to drive an oppressed people to the use of arms. We, there- 

 fore, the subscribers, inhabitants of South Carolina, holding ourselves 

 bound by that most sacred of all obligations — the duty of good citizens 

 towards an injured country, and thoroughly convinced that, under our 

 present distressed circumstances, we shall be justified before God and 

 man in resisting force by force — do unite ourselves under every tie of 

 religion and honour, and associate as a band in her defense against 

 every foe — hereby solemnly engaging that, whenever our continental 

 or provincial councils shall decree it necessary, we will go forth and 

 be ready to sacrifice our lives and fortunes to secure her freedom and 

 safety. This obligation to continue in full force until a reconciliation 

 shall take place between Great Britain and America, upon constitu- 

 tional principles — an event which we most ardently desire. And we 

 will hold all persons inimical to the liberty of the colonies who shall 

 refuse to subscrilje this association. 



South 

 Carolina's 

 Bold Step 



