rney-General of the United States, which I
herewith send you.

"On the subject of the modification of this law, I am free to say,
that when Her B. M.'s Government, through its consul, made a respectful
request to our legislature to that effect, I was anxious that it should
be made. It was with pleasure that I transmitted his first communication
to the last legislature. I would have made a recommendation of its
modification a special point in my first message, but that I thought it
indelicate to do so, as the matter was already before the legislature,
and committees had been appointed to report upon it. Another reason for
the neglect of this recommendation, was the then excited state of
party politics, which might have precluded the possibility of a calm
consideration of the subject. But for the proceedings instituted in the
premises, I would even now recommend a modification of the law, so as to
require captains to confine their colored seamen to their vessels, and
to prevent their landing under heavy penalties. For while I think the
State has a perfect right to pass whatever laws on this subject it may
deem necessary for its safety, yet the spirit of the age requires that
while they should be so formed as to be adequate to our protection,
they should be at the same time as little offensive as possible to other
nations with whom we have friendly relations. But since an attempt has
been made to defy our laws, and bring us in conflict with the Federal
Government, on a subject upon which we are so justly sensitive, our own
self-respect demands that we should not abate one jot or tittle of that
law, which was enacted to protect us from the influence of ignorant
incendiaries."

We are under many obligations to Governor Means for his remarks upon
this subject. We esteem his character too highly to entertain an
idea that he would knowingly make an incorrect statement; but, with a
knowledge of the facts, we can assure him that he was misled by those
whom he depended upon for information. And also, though his name
deserves to stand pre-eminent among the good men of Carolina, for
recurring to that frightful state of things which exists in the
Charleston prison, that he did not receive a correct statement in regard
to it. In this want, his remarks lose much of their value. Subjects and
grievances exist there which he should know most of, and yet he knows
least, because he intrusts them to the caretakers, who make abuses their
me