South Carolina may
preserve her constituted domestic authority, but she must be content to
glimmer obscurely remote rather than shine and revolve in a constellated
band. She even goes out by the ordinance of a so-called sovereign
convention, content to lose by her isolation that youthful, vehement,
exultant, progressive life, which is our NATIONALITY! She foregoes
the hopes, the boasts, the flag, the music, all the emotions, all the
traits, and all the energies which, when combined in our United States,
have won our victories in war and our miracles of national advancement.
Her Governor, Colonel Pickens, in his inaugural, regretfully "looks
back upon the inheritance South Carolina had in the common glories
and triumphant power of this wonderful confederacy, and fails to find
language to express the feelings of the human heart as he turns from the
contemplation." The ties of brotherhood, interest, lineage, and history
are all to be severed. No longer are we to salute a South Carolinian
with the "_idem sententiam de republica_," which makes unity and
nationality. What a prestige and glory are here dimmed and lost in the
contaminated reason of man!
Can we realize it? Is it a masquerade, to last for a night, or a reality
to be dealt with, with the world's rough passionate handling? It is sad
and bad enough; but let us not over-tax our anxieties about it as yet.
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