George Washington Flowers 
 Memorial Collection 
 
 DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 ESTABLISHED BY THE 
 FAMILY OF 
 COLONEL FLOWERS 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/addressofstateriOOstat 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 STATE RIGHTS' AND JACKSON PARTY. 
 
 At a large meeting of the State Rights' and Jackson Parti/, 
 convened at the Carolina Coffee- House on Tuesday Evening, the 
 28th of September, to receive the Report of the Committee of 
 Thirteen, appointed to form a Ticket, for a Member of Congress 
 oiid Members of the State Legislature, Ciiari.es Cotesworth 
 Pi nCKNEV, was called to the Chair, and Stephen Elliott, 
 appointed Secretary. 
 
 The meeting being thus organized, Mr. Elliott, as Secre- 
 tary of the Committee of Thirteen reported the following 
 TICKET by authority of that Committee: — For Congress, 
 William Drayton. For Stale Senator, Richard Cunningham. 
 For Representatives, William Aiken, S. L. Simons, Henry 
 Hulbeck, Jacob F. Mintzing, Eli as Horry, Jacob Axson, 
 Henry L. Pinckney, John Ball, James Ferguson, Peter J. 
 Sband, Isaac E. Holmes, Edward R. Laurens, Ker Boyce, 
 Hu^h S. Legare, Matthew I. Keith, Henry A. Desaussure. 
 
 The question being taken on the adoption and confirmation 
 of this Ticket, it was carried by acclamation without one dis- 
 senting voice, and the meeting agreed zealously, cordially, and 
 undividedly to support it. 
 
 Major JAiMEs Hamilton, Jun. then submitted the following 
 motion : 
 
 That a Committee of Three be appointed to frame an Ad- 
 dress to be prefixed to the Ticket. 
 
 Whereupon Major James Hamilton, jun., Charles Parker, 
 and John Magrath, Esquires, were appointed said Committee. 
 
 The Hon. Robert Y. Wayne then rose and addressed 
 the meeting in a short, impressive and fervently eloquent 
 speech, in which he pourtrayed with great force, not only the 
 duties which the State Rights'' Party owed to the Constitution, 
 but the duties which the party owed to the interests and honour 
 of the State. The views of the party, he said, would be best 
 promoted by thorough concord, by sacrificing all personal pre- 
 judices and preferences, and cordially voting the whole Ticket 
 without division, which suggestion was received with loud and 
 continued applause. 
 
 Major Hamilton, Jun. then reported the Address which 
 was unanimously and enthusiastically adopted, and ordered to 
 be prefixed to the Ticket. 
 
 On motion, it was unanimously 
 
 Resolved, That the Committee of Thirteen continue their 
 organization until the day of election with full power to sup- 
 ply such vacancies as may accidentally occur on the Ticket. 
 
 On motion, it was unanimously 
 
 Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting be given to the 
 
Committee of Thirteen for the able and impartial selection oT 
 Candidates so entirely satisfactory to the States Rights' Party, 
 
 On motion, it was unanimously Resolved, That the thanks 
 of the meeting be given to the Committee for the eloquent 
 and appropriate Address they have just reported. 
 
 On motion, Resolved, That the proceedings of this tneeting F 
 the Ticket, and the Address, be published in the different 
 papers of this city. 
 
 On motion, it was unanimously 
 
 Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting be given to the 
 Chairman and Secretary, for the able and faithful manner in 
 which they have discharged their duties. 
 
 CHARLES C. P1NCKNEY, Chairman, 
 
 Stephen Elliott, Secretary. 
 
 The State Rights' and Jackson Party to the Electors of (he Pa- 
 rishes of St. Philip and St. Michael. 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, 
 
 This community is divided into two parties — one it favor of 
 opposing the usurpations of a despotic majority in Congress,, 
 by all constitutional means connected with the reserved powers 
 of the States — and the other, a party, however equivocal its 
 language, yet by the irresistible force of its principles and me&- 
 sures, in favor of submission to those usurpations, as a more 
 peaceful and less hazardous alternative, than a firm mainte^ 
 nance of our rights. 
 
 To this latter party, we are proud to say, we do not now be^ 
 long, and never can belong, even if the issue of the approaching 
 election should determine that in the Parishes of St. Philip and 
 St. Michael, it is your will that we should be in a minority. 
 
 We have no hesitation in affirming that we are attached 
 however, to a party who maintain that the Constitution of the 
 United States is a plain matter of contract, by which the States 
 who are parties to it, delegated certain powers and reserved 
 certain rights ; that over these last, within the respective limits 
 of the States, the Government of the Union has no control. We 
 believe this cardinal article in our political faith, to be as es- 
 sential to the preservation of the Union, as to the civil liberties 
 of the States themselves. 
 
 With this preliminary statement of our creed, we cannot be 
 insensible to the experience of the past or the signs of the pre- 
 sent times. The progress towards a consolidation of all the 
 Reserved Rights of the States in the Federal head, has not been 
 the less insidious, by its gradual advance towards a perfect con- 
 summation. One of the most interesting reminiscences left 
 by that great apostle of constitutional liberty, Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, is to be found in his recently published memoirs. — It is rn 
 the form of a cabinet conversation which took place between 
 this patriot and the then President, General WASHINGTON, 
 when the former was Secretary of State. — It bears date ae 
 
TBI FLOWERS CtttfCTWw 
 
 3 
 
 having not only occurred, but having been annotated on the 28th 
 February 1792— -and we will not weaken the force of the truths 
 it reveals, by giving it in any other language, than that of the 
 illustrious interlocutor himself. — Speaking of the majority in 
 Congress he remarks: "That it was a fact as certainly known 
 4 as that he (Gen. Washington) and I were then conversing, 
 Hhat particular members of the Legislature had brought for- 
 4 ward a proposition far beyond every one yet advanced, and to 
 4 which the eyes of many were turned, as the decision was to let 
 
 * us know, whether we live under a limited or unlimited govern- 
 
 * ment. — He asked me to what proposition I alluded. I an- 
 swered, to that in the Report on Manufactures, which under 
 4 color of giving bounties for the encouragement of particular 
 ' Manufactures, meant to establish the doctrine, that the power 
 
 * given by the Constitution to collect Taxes, to provide for the 
 
 * general welfare of the United States, permitted Congress to 
 
 * take every thing under their management which they should 
 4 deem best for the public welfare, and which is susceptible of the 
 
 * application of money." 
 
 We thus know, Fellow Citizens, how the cornerstone of 
 Consolidation was laid — and if these things were done in the 
 green tree, let us see what has been done in the dry ? — Can we 
 employ any wisdom more profound, or use any language more 
 authoritative, than that of the same Patriot? — After a lapse of 
 thirty three years, he again says in his justly celebrated letter 
 to Mr. G»les, under the date of 26th December, 1825, "I see, 
 
 * as you do, with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with 
 
 * which the Federal branch of our Government is advancing 
 
 * towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, 
 4 and the consolidation in itselfof all powers foreign and domes- 
 4 tic; and that too, by constructions which if legitimate, leave 
 4 no limits to their power. — Take together the decisions of the 
 4 Federal Court, the doctrines of the President, and the mis- 
 4 constructions of the constitutional compact acted upon by the 
 - Legislature of the Federal branch, and it is but too evident 
 4 that three ruling branches of that department are in combina- 
 4 tion to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the pow- 
 ders reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions 
 4 foreign and domestic. Under the power to regulate com- 
 4 merce, they assume indefinitely that also over agricul- 
 ture and manufactures, and call it regulation to take the 
 
 * earnings of one of these branches of industry, and that too 
 4 the most depressed, and put them into the pockets of the 
 
 * other, the most flourishing of all. — Under the authority to 
 4 establish Post Roads, they claim that of cutting down mountains 
 4 for the construction of Roads, of digging canals, and, aided by 
 
 * a little sophistry on the words general welfare, a right to do 
 4 not only the acts specifically enumerated, but whatsoever they 
 
 * shall think or pretend for the general welfare." 
 
 However familiar, Fellow-Citizeu3, these warnings of this 
 
4 
 
 venerated Republican may be to you all, we could not forbear 
 to call your attention most earnestly to them, for they may al- 
 most be called his dying words; and we shall ask no higher 
 Messing for our country, than that, in the difficult course which 
 she is destined to steer, she may be governed by the chart of 
 his principles and opinions. It is then against this doctrine 
 of ''"the General Welfare" that the South has the utmost cause 
 for complaint and alarm. We have seen that this doctrine 
 has, in fact, enabled a bare majority in Congress to supersede 
 all necessity for amendment to the Constitution by three-fourths 
 of the St ates, and that whenever a new power is wanted, it is ob- 
 tained, under this plastic clause, by a majority sometimes of one 
 or two in the Senate, and four or five in the House of Represen- 
 tatives, and that moreover, under the general power of appro- 
 priation, a use will probably be made of the common treasure, 
 (from instructions having already been given to the delegations 
 of twelve States in this Union) in aid of the Colonization Soci- 
 ety, which must put to hazard the peace and interests of the 
 South, if not its very existence. An acquiescence in the past 
 usurpations of Congress, makes this last threatened usurpation 
 not a matter of conjecture, but of absolute certainty. It is use- 
 less to fight the battle in detail, we must strike at the principle; 
 we must endeavour to essay some means of confining the Gene- 
 ral Government to the exercise of those powers that are enume- 
 rated, and make the phrases of the " General Welfare," and 
 the "power of appropriating the public money" alone appli- 
 cable t > the powers thus enumerated in the Constitution. In 
 this struggle, let us not even say with Mr. Jefferson, "that 
 we have little hope that the torrent of consolidation can be 
 withstood ;" let us rather say, as he said on the same occasion, 
 "that we are not for giving up the ship without efforts to save 
 her ; she lived through the first squall and may weather the 
 present one." Yes ! and she will weather it, if the people of 
 the Southern States are true to themselves ; if with undismayed 
 firmness they maintain his principles and stand upon their own 
 right ; if they disdain to utter the accents of an abject submis- 
 sion or basely calculate the hazards by which Liberty may be 
 won, rather than the blasting curses with which slavery must 
 be endured. 
 
 With a firm conviction that our patriotic Chief Magistrate 
 will do all in his power to equalize the common benefits and 
 burdens of this Confederacy, we nevertheless believe, the hope 
 of redress from the justice of Congress is a melancholy infatu- 
 ation which is unworthy of a momentary consideration. We 
 are convinced that the decided stand which Virginia took, 
 through her Legislature in '98, is precisely the ground which 
 South-Carolina should occupy, by which the Constitution 
 and the Union will he preserved. The same authority to which 
 we have already appealed, and to which we mean to appeal 
 again, tells us that at that period "by holding on, we (the Re- 
 
5 
 
 publican party) obtained time fur tbe Legislatures to come up 
 with their weight, and those of Virginia and Kentucky particu- 
 larly, but mure especially the former, which, by their celebrated 
 Resolutions, saved the Conftirutipn at its LAST GASP." 
 
 Our opponents, in the contest for the present election, anx- 
 ious tu shift tin; ground from a consideration of our rights and 
 the manner in which they have been violated, have turned the 
 discussion entirely to mere questions of remedy, on which they 
 have attempted to create a panic in the public mind by un- 
 founded alarms. They say we ate in favour of Convention, 
 and of Nullification as the scope and end of Convention, and 
 that ^Nullification must end in Revolution. We affirm, as we 
 have aitirmed before, that we have rendered no such issue; the 
 Ticket we offer for your consideration, is neither pledged for 
 or against Convention or Nullification, as w ill be made suffici- 
 ently manifest at the close of this address. 
 
 We acknowledge most freely and proudly that we are in 
 favour of those principles upon which our rights are founded, 
 and decidedly opposed to any measures by which they may be 
 compromised by an unworthy and timid submission; but as to 
 the question of remedy, we are willing to leave it to the delibe- 
 ration of the Legislature, and think we are not performing an 
 unacceptable service to the people by proposing candidates who 
 will join in these deliberations, hoodwinked by no pledges to 
 take care that nothing effectual be done for the relief of our 
 sufferings from the burdens of a system full of injustice and 
 oppression. 
 
 It is not, however, the dread of the senseless cry of the 
 alarmists that will restrain us from remarking, that these 
 vaunted guardians of the people who show so much zeal against 
 Convention, display but an indifferent confidence in their wis- 
 dom and patriotism, by their unceasing denunciations of this 
 assembly, as if it was some anarchical Pandemonium of fraud 
 and usurpation. 
 
 According to our understanding of our political system and 
 its history, it is the very body from which our Constitutions, 
 State and Federative, emanated, and we affirm that a Conven- 
 tion has never been called in any State in this Union, without 
 ministering to some beneficent purpose of domestic liberty and 
 peace, and that of all bodies known to our social and civil 
 polity, it is one the most likely to draw to itself the highest 
 portion of the wisdom and public virtue of the people. W hether 
 a Convention is, or is not necessary, is a question entirely aside 
 from our present purpose to discuss, but if it be called and it per- 
 form no other office than that of declaring, in conformity with 
 a recent extra-judicial dictum of a functionary of the Supreme 
 Court, that " Nullijication is a silly and nicked delusion" (if in 
 fact, and on principle, this measure be so) it will have laboured 
 to as salutary a purpose as the same individual has most sue- 
 
6 
 
 cessfully done in convincing us, how perniciously absurd it is td 
 consider the Judges of the Supreme Court as fit arbiters be- 
 tween the General Government and the States — between the 
 government that pays them and the States that are oppressed. 
 This novel mode of anticipating and deciding grave questions 
 of constitutional law, out of court and in the public prints, is 
 certainly to be recommended as a compendious process of dis- 
 pensing, at least with the forms, if not the essence, of justice. 
 
 The Ticket for our State Legislature, fellow-citizens, which 
 we now offer to you for your support, has been formed by a 
 careful selection of the best talents, patriotism, and public spi- 
 rit, which were at the disposal of our party. A due regard has 
 been paid to a representation of the various interests in our 
 community; and likewise, in selecting those who have the 
 deepest stake in the peace and safety of the State. In adding 
 to these the names of some of our old Members, many of whom 
 are the most prominent objects of the persecution and pro- 
 scription of our opponents, we are sure we are acting in obe- 
 dience to the unanimous voice of our whole Party — for if these, 
 our approved public servants, have a single fault, it hath no 
 other extent than this — a generous zeal for the interests and 
 honour of their Constituents. We confess there has been one 
 precaution which we have vigilantly exercised — that of careful- 
 ly excluding from our Ticket, all those who have made them- 
 selves peculiarly unacceptable to our fellow-citizens in the up- 
 per country, by the gratuitous libels which they have uttered 
 against the State Rights' Party, and by their insane and un- 
 founded clamors of disunion, anarchy, and civil war, which have 
 been so freely attributed to us, as belonging either to the ob- 
 ject or tendency of our measures. In one word, we have se- 
 lected those as fit to represent us, whose feelings and princi- 
 ples would tend to remove the odium, that this Metiopolis is 
 the mere vassal trading-market of Northern Capitalists. In 
 the composition of this Ticket, we have tolerated the utmost 
 differences of opinion on the question — whether Convention is, 
 or is not, expedient at this particular crisis — and with this view 
 we have merely enquired of each of the Gentlemen, whose 
 names are now presented to you, or in their absence, their 
 friends, 
 
 " Whether if elected to the Legislature they would go UN- 
 PLEDGED, and be free to adopt such measures, as on con- 
 sultation with their fellow members, they might deem the most 
 judicious for relieving the State from the burdens of the Ame- 
 rican System." , 
 
 To which enquiry their replies have been abundantly satis- 
 factory. 
 
 You will without doubt, fellow- citizens, recognise as a proof 
 of our unabating - confidence in our worthy and distinguished 
 Representative to Congress Col. William Drayton, h'ts 
 
7 
 
 name at the head of our Ticket. It is not the censorious use 
 of the opinions of this gentleman against those friends who 
 were among the earliest and most zealous of his supporters, 
 so artfully employed by some of those who never found out his 
 merits until they discovered that the authority of his name could 
 be used for their own purposes, that can weaken his claims to 
 our attachment and support. We need only appeal to the un- 
 bounded adulation which this gentleman has received from our 
 oppressors, even the manufacturers, their agents, and repre- 
 sentatives, to shew how grossly his sentiments have either been 
 mistaken or perverted. On the simple alternative of the Ta- 
 riff Law as a mere question of Dollars and Cents and Disunion, 
 what man of sense, with Col. Drayton, could hesitate for one 
 moment as to his choice. The duty of two pence on Tea, at 
 the commencement of the Revolution, as a mere question of 
 profit and loss was not to be put in competition with one drop 
 of the life blood that flowed from the heart of the gallant and 
 martyred Warren, whilst a resistance to the principle on 
 which it was levied, was worth all the blood that it cost. Let 
 those who repose on the authority of Col. Drayton, propound 
 the enquiry to him whether he is prepared to submit to a gov- 
 ernment " without limitation of powers," or interpose the sov- 
 ereignty of the State ? Can wft, who know him, doubt what 
 would be his answer ? Let those too, who swear by his autho- 
 rity, moreover, ask him if he thinks the principle of the Tariff' 
 one of the links in the chain of this very government " without 
 limitation of powers ?" In his absence, fortunately, we haf*e his 
 answer at hand, pronounced, not after the consummation of 
 the act of abominations of 1828, but on the mere apprehended 
 passage of a much less oppressive measure — the woollens bill 
 of 1827. In the following fine and indignant burst of elo- 
 quence, he said : — " If Congress could impose the Tariff, thenis 
 our independence but a phantom — then have the Patriots of the 
 Revolution toiled in vain — then would it be better for us to return 
 to our fanner Colonial vassalage, when, if unjustly taxed, the bur- 
 den was imposed without discrimination, upon all our countrymen ; 
 when, if oppressed, our oppressors were not our Representatives ; 
 when, if we were enslaved, we were not guilty of forging the chains 
 eur selves with which our liberty teas manacled." 
 
 To conclude, fellow-citizens, we ask you in a moment of 
 calmness and deliberation, to lay your hands upon your hearts, 
 and say, whether you believe that nineteen-twentieths of the 
 owners of our soil, from the mountains to the sea-shore, who 
 think even with Col. Drayton, if Congress can be guilty of 
 the usurpations they have perpetrated, " our independence is 
 but a phantom," or who think with us that these usurpations 
 •should and must be arrested, are bent on civil war, or have en- 
 tered into that most extraordinary of all conspiracies against 
 the Union, which is known to the whole world, " though few 
 
8 
 
 are in the secret!" For example, can you believe that the men 
 who compose the subjoined Ticket will countenance any mea- 
 sures having the remotest tendency to involve our beloved Srate 
 in intestine commotion and blood, unless indeed you are pre- 
 pared to think they will favor the decree, by law, of a sort of 
 sanguinary Saturnalia, and have a strong desire to see their 
 own warehouses rifled by rapine, and their barns burnt to the 
 ground by > incendiary violence. No! between submission to 
 usurpation and revolution, our Constitution has provided a mid- 
 dle ground, where we trust in. God, through all time to come, 
 our State may find Liberty, Peace ^aud Safety. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens of the State Rights' and Jackson Party, lef 
 us remember our pledge* to give this Ticket our cordial and 
 u 'livided support. In one word, jet every man do his duty. 
 If we are victorious, let moderation, rather thaw exultation, 
 l»e the token of our triumph. If defeated', let the principles we 
 sustain, be the bond of our Union, and let disaster and the 
 persecutions «nd ^viii-n^feof -.our .orrntnents but unite us the 
 more closely and endear \sk to each other.. Let us remember 
 that what that great and good man Thomas Jefferson eaiaV 
 of the times and events of '93, is true to the letter and appli- 
 cable, t®ours«lves atufV otiY tunes. " Ntftpef son who was not a 
 witness of the scenes of that . gfcfomy period, can form any idea 
 of the afflicting persecutions and personal indignities we had to 
 brook." THEY SAVED OUR COUNTRY, HOWEVER. 
 Yes, grid sfi^mW 4m efforts OK THE STATE RIGHTS' 
 PiWpFY; and let the first blow you strike in this holy cause, 
 be in the unbroken phalanx with which you will advance to the 
 Polls, in support of the subjoined Ticket — in support of LI- 
 BERTY, THE CONSTITUTION AND THE UNION. 
 
 State iUgljis' mxt $natuQti mtUtu 
 WILLIAM DRAYTON. 
 
 RICHARD CUNNINGHAM- 
 
 ♦r 
 
 WILLIAM AIKEN, JAMES FERGUSON, 
 
 SEDGWICK L. SIMONS, PETER J. SHAND, 
 
 HENRY HORLBECK, ISAAC E. HOLMES, 
 
 JACOB F. Ml Tr ZING, EDWARD R. LAURENS, 
 
 ELIAS HORRY, - # KER BOYCE, 
 
 JACOB AXSON, HUGH S. LEGARE, 
 
 HENRY. L. P1NCKNEY, MATTHEW I. KE ' H, 
 
 JOHN BALL, • HENRY A.DESAUSLURE. 
 
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