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SOUTH CAROLINA PATRIOTISM.

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the colonists to unite in support of his majesty against the "daring, horrid and unnatural rebellion," and they had both failed in their efforts. Now the patriotism of South Carolina was to prove sufficient to protect her against the attack that was about to be made. Lee, who had previously been ordered to Canada to take the place of Montgomery, was sent to the South, and was in command at Charleston, having arrived on the fourth of June. Arrangements had already been made for the protection of the harbor, a hastily erected fort having been fortified on Sullivan's Island, and though not completed when the fleet arrived, Colonel William Moultrie took command of it, and held it against the attack with so much skill and intrepidity, that after enduring a hot fire for twelve hours, the South Carolina militiamen forced the British fleet to retreat with great loss. The fort has since borne the name of Moultrie. Though Lee's advice was against trying to hold the fort, he received much credit for the success that was achieved.

There were few men in all the Colonies who had looked forward to independence as a right to be demanded, but in every one there had been slowly growing up a feeling that the relations between them and the Mother-Country could not be sustained as they then existed. The first real declaration of the necessity of independence was made by Virginia, on the fifteenth day of May, 1776, when she instructed. her delegates in Congress to propose the sundering of the ties that bound the Colonies to England. On the twenty-ninth of June she went further, and declared that the ties which had bound her to the Crown were then dissolved. "North Carolina was

the first Colony to act as a unit in favor of independence. On the fifteenth of May, only four of the Colonies had acted definitely on the question." North Carolina, Rhode Island and Massachusetts had authorized their delegates to concur in declaring independence, and Virginia had instructed her delegates to propose it.* Many other bodies had done as Cambridge, Mass., did, when, on the twenty-seventh of May, it engaged to support Congress "if" it should "for the safety of the Colonies declare them independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain;" but none had then taken a step so advanced as that of Virginia. At the time that she declared herself free from Great Britain, she, by an unanimous vote, adopted "the first written Constitution ever framed by an independent political society." The same convention on the fifteenth of May appointed a committee eventually comprising thirty-two members, including Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison, to prepare a Declaration of Rights, and on the twentyseventh of May, the Declaration was presented by Archibald Cary. It had been drawn up by Mason. On the twelfth of June it was adopted. It dealt in general principles, and made no reference to Great Britain, as the bills passed in the other Colonies had.

On the fourteenth of June the Connecticut Assembly directed the delegates of that Colony in Congress to propose that the Colonies be declared independent and absolved from allegiance to the King, and the

See Frothingham's "Rise of the Republic of the United States," pages 502, 512.

"The Virginia Convention of 1776," by Hugh Blair Grigsby, p. 19; Richmond, 1855.

THE COLONIES DECLARED INDEPENDENT. 285

next day New Hampshire voted in favor of a declaration of independence. The final step was now to be taken. On the seventh of June,* Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, introduced in Congress at Philadelphia, a resolution to the effect that the Colonies "are, and ought to be, free and independent States," and that a

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plan of federation should be immediately made and sent to the Colonies for consideration. In introducing the resolution, Mr. Lee said in substance:

*Two days before, on the fifth of June, the declaration made by the Virginia General Assembly having been communicated to the Legislature of Pennsylvania, was read and discussed in another room in the same Old State House, in which the Congress was in session.

"The question is not whether we shall acquire an increase of territorial dominion, or wickedly wrest from others their just possessions, but whether we shall preserve or lose forever that liberty which we have inherited from our ancestors, which we have pursued across tempestuous seas, and have defended in this land against barbarous men, ferocious beasts and an inclement sky. If so many and distinguished praises have always been lavished upon the generous defenders of Greek and Roman liberty, what shall be said of us who defend a liberty which is founded, not on the capricious will of an unstable multitude, but upon immutable statutes and titulary laws; not that which was the exclusive privilege of a few patricians, but which is the property of all; not that which was stained by iniquitous ostracisms, or the horrible decimation of armies, but that which is pure, temperate and gentle, and conformed to the civilization of the age? Animated by liberty, the Greeks repulsed the innumerable army of Persians; sustained by the love of independence, the Swiss and Dutch humbled the power of Austria by memorable defeats, and conquered a rank among nations; but the sun of America shines also upon the head of the brave; the point of our weapons is no less formidable than theirs ; here also the same union prevails, the same contempt of danger and of death, in asserting the cause of country. Why, then, do we longer delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to the American republic. Let her arise, not to devastate and conquer, but to re-establish the reign of peace and of law. The eyes of Europe are upon us; she demands of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast, in the felicity of the citizen, to the ever-increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum, where the unhappy may find solace and the persecuted repose. She invites us to cultivate a propitious soil, where that generous plant which first sprang and grew in England, but is now withered by the poisonous blasts of Scottish tyranny, may revive and flourish, sheltering under its salubrious and interminable shade all the unfortunate of the human race. If we are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, the names of American legislators of 1776, will be placed by posterity at the side of those of Theseus, of Lycurgus, Romulus, of Numa, of the three Williams of Nassau, and of all those whose memory has been and forever will be dear to virtuous men!"

The resolution was seconded by John Adams, of Massachusetts, and on the eleventh, a committee consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benja

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