teers officered by
themselves; and concluded with a confident "appeal to the Disposer of
all human events," in whose keeping the "Cause" was to be entrusted.

That same evening (November 5), being the eve of the election, at
Augusta, South Carolina, in response to a serenade, United States
Senator Chestnut made a speech of like import, in which, after
predicting the election of Mr. Lincoln, he said: "Would the South submit
to a Black Republican President, and a Black Republican Congress, which
will claim the right to construe the Constitution of the Country, and
administer the Government in their own hands, not by the law of the
instrument itself, nor by that of the fathers of the Country, nor by the
practices of those who administered seventy years ago, but by rules
drawn from their own blind consciences and crazy brains? * * * The
People now must choose whether they would be governed by enemies, or
govern themselves."

He declared that the Secession of South Carolina was an "undoubted
right," a "duty," and their "only safety" and as to himself, he would
"unfurl the Palmetto flag, fling it to the breeze, and, with the spirit
of a brave man, live and die as became" his "glorious ancestors, and
ring the clarion notes of defiance in the ears of an insolent foe!"

So also, in Columbia, South Carolina, Representative Boyce of that
State, and other prominent politicians, harangued an enthusiastic crowd
that night--Mr. Boyce declaring: "I think the only policy for us is to
arm, as soon as we receive authentic intelligence of the election of
Lincoln. It is for South Carolina, in the quickest manner, and by the
most direct means, to withdraw from the Union. Then we will not submit,
whether the other Southern States will act with us or with our enemies.
They cannot take sides with our enemies; they must take sides with us.
When an ancient philosopher wished to inaugurate a great revolution, his
motto was to dare! to dare!"

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Conspiracy, Part 1.
by John Alexander Logan

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