South Carolina

"The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery; and slavery depends on the triumphs of the south... This war is the servant of slavery."

"If the Republican party with its platform of principles, the main feature of which is the abolition of slavery and, therefore, the destruction of the South, carries the country at the next Presidential election, shall we remain in the Union, or form a separate Confederacy? This is the great, grave issue. It is not who shall be President, it is not which party shall rule -- it is a question of political and social existence."

"In the 1950s, the battle flag was revived not just as a symbol of resistance to federally mandated desegregation. The stars and bars was also a symbol of terror, of the violent intimidation of African Americans who dared assert their rights. The stars and bars promised lynching, police violence against protestors and others, and violence against churches. S.C.'s state flag is a flag of slavery. But it is also a flag of terrorism. That terror is among other things anti-religious and particularly, anti-Christian. Churches have been bombed & burned for what it symbolizes. Ministers, worshippers, people singing hymns have been attacked time and time again by those who serve it and those who wave it. So here we are again. S.C. may lower the pro-terrorism, proslavery, anti-religious flag to half mast for a day. But they plan to raise it again."

"South Carolina, come on and raise up! This one's for you! This one's for who? Us, us, us! Yes, sir!"

"North Carolina, South Carolina, and all my little itty-bitty hick towns."

"If Haley appears unfamiliar with the history of New Hampshire’s contribution to the preservation of democracy and emancipation, she is certainly well acquainted with South Carolina’s attempt at its destruction, and the history that both preceded and followed it, which has been apparent in her efforts to soften and cover it up. Surely, when she entered her office as governor in the state capitol of South Carolina in Columbia, Haley recognized the larger-than-life brass statue of John C Calhoun, ideologue of the master class and leader of nullification, who declared slavery to be a “positive good”, standing in the middle of the rotunda. The battle flag that flew above the capitol was raised by an act of the legislature in 1961 as a protest of defiance against civil rights and waved there when she was elected governor."

"Whatever is necessary to continue the separation of the races in the schools of South Carolina is going to be done by the white people of the state. That is my ticket as a private citizen. It will be my ticket as governor."

"I never know what South Carolina thinks of a measure. I never consult her. I act to the best of my judgment, and according to my conscience. If she approves, well and good. If she does not, or wishes any one to take my place, I am ready to vacate. We are even."

"With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and the poor, but white and black, and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected."

"The issue before the country is the extinction of slavery... No man of common sense, who has observed the progress of events, and is not prepared to surrender the institution... The time for action has come – now or never... The existence of slavery is at stake."

"To talk of maintaining our independence while we abolish slavery is simply to talk folly."

"We can trust white men to do right by the inferior race, but we cannot trust the inferior race with power over the white man."

"We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, grateful to God for our liberties, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the preservation and perpetuation of the same."

"I am no more a child, but a man; no longer a confederacy, but a nation. I am no more Virginia, New York, Carolina, or Massachusetts, but the United States of America."

"I am actually looking forward to the day when I visit South Carolina. The actions of the people in demanding change that took place on July 10, 2015 have helped transform my perception of that state. The people have broken free from the shackles of a mythical past and the limitations of the racism that has impeded them for far too long. Their representatives acted on the demands of the people."

"A Philadelphia writer on this subject, Mr. A. K. McClure, declares that such prejudice was much stronger in his own State, in 1886, than in South Carolina."

"James Byrnes, that favorite son of this commonwealth, and Secretary of State of the United States, is today occupying an indefensible and impossible position; and if he survives in the memory of men, he must begin to help establish in his own South Carolina something of that democracy which he has been recently so loudly preaching to Russia. He is the end of a long series of men whose eternal damnation is the fact that they looked truth in the face and did not see it; John C. Calhoun, Wade Hampton, Ben Tillman are men whose names must ever be besmirched by the fact that they fought against freedom and democracy in a land which was founded upon democracy and freedom. Eventually this class of men must yield to the writing in the stars. That great hypocrite, Jan Smuts, who today is talking of humanity and standing beside Byrnes for a United Nations, is at the same time oppressing the black people of South Africa to an extent which makes their two countries, South Africa and the American South, the most reactionary peoples on earth. Peoples whose exploitation of the poor and helpless reaches the last degree of shame. They must in the long run yield to the forward march of civilization or die."

"The world, if it resumes its march toward civilization, cannot ignore reason. This has been the tragedy of the South in the past; it is still its awful and unforgivable sin that it has set its face against reason and against the fact. It tried to build slavery upon freedom; it tried to build tyranny upon democracy; it tried to build mob violence on law and law on lynching and in all that despicable endeavor, the state of South Carolina has led the South for a century. It began not the Civil War—not the War between the States—but the War to Preserve Slavery; it began mob violence and lynching and today it stands in the front rank of those defying the Supreme Court on disfranchisement."

"“Behold the beautiful land which the Lord thy God hath given thee.” Behold the land, the rich and resourceful land, from which for a hundred years its best elements have been running away, its youth and hope, black and white, scurrying North because they are afraid of each other, and dare not face a future of equal, independent, upstanding human beings, in a real and not a sham democracy. To rescue this land, in this way, calls for the Great Sacrifice. This is the thing that you are called upon to do because it is the right thing to do. Because you are embarked upon a great and holy crusade, the emancipation of mankind, black and white; the upbuilding of democracy; the breaking down, particularly here in the South, of forces of evil represented by race prejudice in South Carolina; by lynching in Georgia; by disfranchisement in Mississippi; by ignorance in Louisiana and by all these and monopoly of wealth in the whole South. There could be no more splendid vocation beckoning to the youth of the twentieth century, after the flat failures of white civilization, after the flamboyant establishment of an industrial system which creates poverty and the children of poverty which are ignorance and disease and crime; after the crazy boasting of a white culture that finally ended in wars which ruined civilization in the whole world; in the midst of allied peoples who have yelled about democracy and never practiced it either in the British Empire or in the American Commonwealth or in South Carolina."

"I have taught in South Carolina and lectured in the state numerous times. I have unfailingly been treated with courtesy and respect. Roof does not speak for all the white people in the state. Nonetheless, South Carolina has never really come to terms with its tortured history. Here are a few highlights of the state's extreme pro-slavery, white-supremacist past. In 1776, South Carolina delegates to the Continental Congress forced Thomas Jefferson to remove a clause condemning slavery from the Declaration of Independence. In 1787, South Carolinians were primarily responsible for the constitution's fugitive slave clause and provision allowing the importation of slaves from abroad to continue for twenty additional years. Until 1860, a tight-knit coterie of plantation owners controlled the state; they did not even allow the white citizens to vote in presidential elections, the legislature chose the state's members of the Electoral College. Before the Civil War, South Carolina was one of two states, along with Mississippi, where nearly a majority of white families owned slaves, and had the largest black majority in its population, nearly 60 percent in 1860. This combination produced a unique brand of extremism in defense of slavery. The state was the birthplace of nullification, the first to secede, and the site of the first shot of the Civil War. During Reconstruction, black Carolinians enjoyed a brief moment of civil equality and genuine political power, but this ended with a violent 'Redemption', followed by decades of Jim Crow. More recently, South Carolina led the southern walk-out from the 1948 Democratic National Convention to protest a civil-rights plank in the party's platform, and supported its native son, Strom Thurmond, who ran as the 'Dixiecrat' candidate for president."

"During the war of the Revolution, and in 1788, the date of the adoption of our national Constitution, there was but one State among the thirteen whose constitution refused the right of suffrage to the negro. That State was South Carolina. Some, it is true, established a property qualification; all made freedom a prerequisite; but none save South Carolina made color a condition of suffrage. The Federal Constitution makes no such distinction, nor did the Articles of Confederation. In the Congress of the Confederation, on the 25th of June, 1778, the fourth article was under discussion. It provided that 'the free inhabitants of each of these States — paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted — shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States.' The delegates from South Carolina moved to insert between the words 'free inhabitants' the word 'white', thus denying the privileges and immunities of citizenship to the colored man. According to the rules of the convention, each State had but one vote. Eleven States voted on the question. One was divided; two voted aye; and eight voted no. It was thus early, and almost unanimously, decided that freedom, not color, should be the test of citizenship. No federal legislation prior to 1812 placed any restriction on the right of suffrage in consequence of the color of the citizen. From 1789 to 1812 Congress passed ten separate laws establishing new Territories. In all these, freedom, and not color, was the basis of suffrage."

"Milgrim considered the dog-headed angels in Gay Dolphin Gift Cove…in the most thoroughgoing trove of roadside American souvenir kitsch he’d ever seen. How old did a place like this have to be, in America, to have “gay” in its name? Some percentage of the stock here, he judged, had been manufactured in Occupied Japan."

"They were headed inland [from Myrtle Beach] through a landscape that reminded Milgrim of driving somewhere near Los Angeles, to a destination you wouldn’t be particularly anxious to reach. This abundantly laned highway, lapped by the lots of outlet malls, a Home Depot the size of a cruise ship, theme restaurants. Though interstitial detritus still spoke stubbornly of maritime activity and the farming of tobacco. Fables from before the Anaheiming."

"We all woke up today and the heart and soul of South Carolina was broken. And so we have some grieving to do, and we've got some pain we have to go through. Parents are having to explain to the their kids that they have to go to church and feel safe and that's not something that we ever thought we'd would have to deal with. Having said that, we are a strong the and faithful state. We love our state, we love our county, and most importantly we love each other. And I will tell you there is a lot of prayer in this state. And so you are going to see all of us try and lift these nine families up in prayer, because they need us. These nine families need us, the Emmanuel AME church needs us, the AME church family need us, and the people of South Carolina needs us to come together and be strong for what has happened."

"We really kind of fixed all that when you elected the first Indian-American female governor, when we appointed the first African-American U.S. senator. That sent a huge message... On matters of race, South Carolina has had a tough history; we all know that. Many of us have seen it in our lives, in the lives of our parents and grandparents. We don't need reminders... For those who wish to respect the flag on private property, no one will stand in your way. But the statehouse is different. The events this past week call on us to look at this in a different way... We are not going to allow this symbol to divide us any longer... The fact that it causes so [much] pain is enough to move it from the capitol grounds. It is, after all, a capitol that belongs to all of us... It will be fitting our state will soon fly the flags of our country, of our state, and no other."

"I ask you this-an honest question-why is there talk of Spain and Yugoslavia, of Palestine and Greece but no talk of Aiken County, South Carolina."

"Started in Atlanta, then I spread out with it. South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi. On to North Carolina, Philadelphia, and Virginia. From down in Miami where it's warm in the winter. On up to Minnesota where it storms in the winter."

"They still honor Benjamin Tillman down here, which is very much like honoring a malignant tumor. A statue of Tillman, who was known as 'Pitchfork Ben', is on prominent display outside the statehouse. Tillman served as governor and U.S. senator in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A mortal enemy of black people, he bragged that he and his followers had disenfranchised 'as many as we could', and he publicly defended the murder of blacks."

"The three States of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, comprising the military department of the south, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these three States — Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina— heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free."

"I congratulate you, my dear friend, on the law of your state for suspending the importation of slaves, and for the glory you have justly acquired by endeavoring to prevent it forever. This abomination must have an end, and there is a superior bench reserved in heaven for those who hasten it."

"The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States."

"It happened on Calhoun Street, in a church that was founded by Denmark Vesey. Just a few miles from the opening salvo of a rebellion intended to establish a slaveholding republic. Just up the road from Columbia, where a Confederate flag still flies on the capitol grounds. A street named after one of the intellectual architects of white supremacy."

"Controversy surrounding the Confederate flag in Columbia has its roots in the Civil Rights Movement and resistance to integration. When that flag went up atop the state house in the early 1960s the government of South Carolina thereby sanctioned its use by whites throughout the state and beyond as part of their resistance to demands by black Americans for freedom and equal rights. The flag atop the capitol signaled to the rest of the world that South Carolina intended to remain a white man's government in the name of white supremacy."

"I have never doubted what Virginia would do when the alternatives present themselves to her intelligent and gallant people, to choose between an association with her sisters and the dominion of a people, who have chosen their leader upon the single idea that the African is equal to the Anglo-Saxon, and with the purpose of placing our slaves on equality with ourselves and our friends of every condition! and if we of South Carolina have aided in your deliverance from tyranny and degradation, as you suppose, it will only the more assure us that we have performed our duty to ourselves and our sisters in taking the first decided step to preserve an inheritance left us by an ancestry whose spirit would forbid its being tarnished by assassins. We, of South Carolina, hope soon to greet you in a Southern Confederacy, where white men shall rule our destinies, and from which we may transmit to our posterity the rights, privileges, and honor left us by our ancestors."

"Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens, and let them vote. Are they property? Why, then, is no other property included? The Houses in this city are worth more than all the wretched slaves which cover the rice swamps of South Carolina."

"The South went to war on account of slavery. South Carolina went to war, as she said in her secession proclamation, because slavery would not be secure under Lincoln. South Carolina ought to know what was the cause for her seceding."

"By the time the Constitutional Convention assembled, 1787, virtually all northern states, Vermont, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, were implementing some form of gradual abolition. The lone exception, New York, followed the same path in 1799 after two failed attempts, in 1777 and 1785, were defeated by the state legislature. It was the delegates from the southern states, Georgia and South Carolina, who pushed for the maintenance of the slave trade in opposition of those from the other states!"

"For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge, including Governor Haley, whose recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride. For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation. We see that now. Removing the flag from this state's capitol would not be an act of political correctness; it would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought, the cause of slavery, was wrong. The imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong. It would be one step in an honest accounting of America's history; a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds. It would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this country for the better, because of the work of so many people of goodwill, people of all races striving to form a more perfect union. By taking down that flag, we express God's grace."

"Despite what Obama says, racism is not passed along in DNA through the generations. If that were the case, America wouldn't be the tolerant, multi-racial country it is today. Yes, America, like the vast majority of the rest of the world, at one time participated in slavery. While the sin of slavery is not justified, it is important to acknowledge that the sin of slavery isn't a uniquely American sin, but rather one of mankind throughout the course of history. Further, owning slaves is not a sin unique to white people; in fact, black Africans sold other blacks into slavery, and still do today. Slavery is uniquely human, but societies and countries that respect human dignity, like America, have stopped the horrifying practice. America had the dignity to end slavery through a civil war and has since moved forward to correct wrongs with the civil rights movement, affirmative action, legislation, pop culture and much more. Institutional racism is no longer prevalent in the ways the left claims. Obama, elected twice by American voters, is black, as is former Attorney General Eric Holder and current Attorney General Loretta Lynch. There are a number of blacks serving in the U.S. Congress, including Republican Senator Tim Scott and Congresswoman Mia Love, Utah. The likes of Oprah Winfrey and Beyoncé are business and popular culture icons. Look around the world and you'll find that America is the most tolerant and open society on earth. The World Values Survey shows India, not the United States, is in fact the most racist country with a class system. The same survey has shown for years that Americans are among the least racist in the world and therefore are the most tolerant. Do racists exist in this country? Of course they do. Is their racism sanctioned by the government and celebrated by fellow citizens? Absolutely not. In fact, the Charleston shooter, who I refuse to name, told friends he felt isolated and alone in his evil, racist views. That's a silver lining. As a society we have corrected many of the wrongs of slavery and racism, the individuals who have not corrected their racist views are an innumerable minority roundly and strongly condemned by the rest of society. The Charleston shooter’s feelings about race are the exception, not the rule, in this country. This is demonstrated by the response in Charleston of blacks and whites holding hands and coming together, not apart, to honor the memory of those who were killed. America isn't a racist country, not even close, and it certainly isn't a 'white supremacist' society. The left falsely saying so promotes not progress but division. American history includes slavery and racism, but its current status and future as a whole does not. The people who lost loved ones at Emanuel AME Church have forgiven their killer. It's time the left does the same with America for her long past sins."

"During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the pro-slavery members, who eventually became the Democratic Party five years later, argued that slaves should be counted as citizens when considering the number of congressional seats their state would receive. They made this argument even though they had no intentions of giving the slaves the same rights afforded to the white citizens of their states. The anti-slavery members, who eventually became the Republican Party, strongly opposed this racist proposal. To finalize the constitution and not give in totally to the pro-slavery members, they reached a compromise with a three-fifths clause. Under the new clause, the pro-slavery states could only count the slaves three-fifths of a person when determining how many congressional seats their state would receive. Shortly after this matter was settled, Pierce Butler, a representative from the slave state of South Carolina argued that the document should include a Fugitive Slave Clause. Under his proposed recommendation, runaway slaves would be classified as criminals and treated as such. To avoid any further delays in finalizing the constitution, the constitutional convention approved the clause but stated the federal government would not enforce this clause, enforcement would be the responsibility of the individual slave state."

"South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum."

"South Carolina, a state filled with evangelicals and active and retired military."

"A remedy is needed to meet the evil now existing in most of the southern states, but especially in that one which I have the honor to represent in part, the State of South Carolina. The enormity of the crimes constantly perpetrated there finds no parallel in the history of this republic in her very darkest days. There was a time when the early settlers of New England were compelled to enter the fields, their homes, even the very sanctuary itself, armed to the full extent of their means. While the people were offering their worship to God within those humble walls their voices kept time with the tread of the sentry outside. But, sir, it must be borne in mind that at the time referred to civilization had but just begun its work upon this continent. The surroundings were unpropitious, and as yet the grand capabilities of this fair land lay dormant under the fierce tread of the red man. But as civilization advanced with its steady and resistless sway it drove back those wild cohorts and compelled them to give way to the march of improvement. In course of time superior intelligence made its impress and established its dominion upon this continent. That intelligence, with an influence like that of the sun rising in the east and spreading its broad rays like a garment of light, gave life and gladness to the dark."

"It has been asserted on this floor that the Republican Party is answerable for the existing state of affairs in the south. I am here to deny this, and to illustrate, I will say that in the State of South Carolina there is no disturbance of an alarming character in any one of the counties in which the Republicans have a majority. The troubles are usually in those sections in which the Democrats have a predominance in power, and, not content with this, desire to be supreme."

"South Carolina and the other states decided not to go before the Supreme Court despite the fact that the Constitution requires them to. The Constitution says 'all cases' and it specifically includes 'controversies between two or more states'. South Carolina's specific complaint on December 24, 1860 was, 'The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them'. Instead of going to the Supreme Court with this complaint, South Carolina chose to declare, on its own, the U.S. Constitution 'has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation'. By issuing an ordnance instead of obtaining a judgment, South Carolina produced a meaningless declaration that President Lincoln rightly considered 'legally void'. Between the time of South Carolina’s declaration and the war, Lincoln became President on March 4, 1861 and went about things business as usual, assuming correctly that all states including the seceding states were still part of the union. President Lincoln didn’t have to sue in the Supreme Court to bring the seceding states back because they never left. Secession declared was not secession accomplished. After South Carolina finally took un-ignorable military action against the USA at Ft. Sumter on April 12, 1861, President Lincoln asked Congress to give him authority to undertake a war to put down the rebellion."

"Even South Carolina argued that secession was extra-constitutional. In the declaration, South Carolina does bring up the Tenth Amendment, but not as a justification for secession; instead the Tenth Amendment is offered to buttress the argument that South Carolina was and continued to be an independent sovereign state when it ratified the Constitution and afterwards. South Carolina's rationale for secession was a new 'fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact'. This principle is in neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution. South Carolina on its own, 1, characterized the Constitution as a compact, 2, claimed that it was 'deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States' and 3, declared that 'the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation'. South Carolina was not claiming to follow the Constitution when it declared secession. On the contrary, South Carolina was claiming that the Constitution was broken and therefore no longer applicable to South Carolina. South Carolina was claiming to follow something else entirely, the law of compact. South Carolina was not appealing to the Supreme Court to interpret secession as part of the Constitution. South Carolina was 'appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world'. And I think we all know how that turned out."

"South Carolinian secessionists believed that the constitution was a contract between the states, that the non-slaveholding states had broken it, and that S.C. could on its own decide that it was broken. The South Carolinian secessionists claimed that the Constitution had not designated an arbiter of controversies among two or more states, but it had. Article III of the Constitution gives the power to arbitrate such disputes to the U.S. Supreme Court. South Carolina's claim of no arbiter is false. South Carolina could have brought its complaints to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it chose not to. South Carolina's belief that the Constitution was a contract between the states was also false. The Constitution begins 'We the people' and it was ratified by the states on behalf of, not in place of, the people. Finally, South Carolina's belief that the non-slaveholding states broke the Constitution is false. The non-slaveholding states were merely exercising their tenth amendment rights to govern their own domestic affairs within the Constitutional structure."

"A gentleman once asked me in the South, what I thought, on the whole, of South Carolina. I told him: ”I am sorry to say that you are a century, at least, behind in the means of civilization.” He wanted to know why I thought so. I said: “The only civilization you have exists among your slaves: for if industry and the mechanical arts are the great criterion of civilization (and I believe they are), then certainly the slaves are the only civilized ones among you, because they do all the work.”"

"A state where it's always a great day... The State of South Carolina will always be the place of new beginnings and fresh starts... Thank you, South Carolina. Thank you! God bless you!"

"I don't like the idea of segregating everyone into smaller districts. Besides, the Justice Department assumes that the only way for African-Americans to have representation is to elect an African-American, and the same for whites. Obviously, my constituents don't think that's true."