Government and Law

Cooperationists invoked the experience of nullification, when the state was without a single ally in an impending armed confrontation with the federal government. They warned that separate secession would produce abortive violence, dooming future action by a combination of slaveholding states.

Chief among the business of the council was the command and administration of the provincial military force and issuing paper currency to finance military expenses.

Counties, districts, and parishes all existed in South Carolina after independence from Great Britain. Under the 1778 constitution, the parish and the district were election districts for the General Assembly.

At the heart of country ideology was a profound distrust of human nature. Endowed with reason, man deserved the liberty to chart his own destiny, yet he inevitably hurt others in his quest for fulfillment.

He won local prominence as a writer and orator, especially for his speeches on behalf of various reforming causes. In 1807 he joined Stephen Elliott, Thomas Smith Grimké, and others to found the Conversation or Literary Club.

Craven had one of the longest tenures of any proprietary-era governor, and despite political conflict and the outbreak of the Yamassee War in 1715, his was considered one of the most successful terms of office.

Crum also enjoyed close relations with nationally prominent African Americans, such as the Washington, D.C., businessman Whitefield McKinlay and the newspaper editors Harry Smith and T. Thomas Fortune.

To the merchants and planters of Charleston, Dale appeared as an embodiment of the virtues of civility: he was learned, witty, and sociable.

To further attract industry, Daniel helped establish the State Development Board in 1945. Believing that South Carolina’s key industrial advantage was a union-free workforce, Daniel backed the state’s 1954 right-to-work law.

Darlington gained notoriety in the 1890s as the site of the so-called “Dispensary War,” which reflected the unpopularity of the state dispensary system in the Pee Dee region.

An active member of the South Carolina Agricultural Society, Davie also assisted in negotiating the boundary dispute between North and South Carolina.

Davis’s most significant public undertaking was his involvement in the campaign to establish a public lunatic asylum in Columbia.

His military career in Europe culminated in 1776, when he was commissioned a brigadier general in the French army. De Kalb subsequently decided to seek his military fortune in America, where he was contracted as a major general in the Continental army.

After the war De Leon returned to America and worked to reestablish the Democratic Party in the South, campaigning for Horatio Seymour for president in 1868 and Horace Greeley in 1872.

South Carolina is one of thirty-eight states that authorize the death penalty. Murder is the only state crime for which one may be executed.

Forced to leave his native state, he later wrote the FBI that he fled South Carolina, “Not to escape justice, but to escape injustice.”

In Pittsburgh, Delany began his efforts to advance the condition of African Americans. Between 1843 and 1847 he developed a black-nationalist perspective in the columns of his weekly newspaper, the Mystery. He called for the creation of separate black institutions and advocated black migration beyond the borders of the United States.

A gifted orator noted for his passion, DeLarge used his political skills to help organize the Republican Party in South Carolina.

DeMint considers himself a conservative who believes in the principles of limited government, a strong national defense, and traditional family values.

It is difficult to exaggerate the dominance of the Democratic Party in South Carolina during the first fifty years of the twentieth century. In every presidential election except that of 1948, the Democratic candidate received the state’s electoral votes.