Politics

Although begun as a literary journal, the Charleston Mercury developed into one of the state’s most radical and combative newspapers.

The activism and aggression against whites displayed by Charleston blacks set that city apart from others in the South during Reconstruction.

The clashes were in large measure due to white fears over a newfound assertiveness demonstrated by the black servicemen returning from World War I, and paralleled the hysterical antiforeign, antiradical “Red Scare” of 1919 and 1920.

Chesnut was considered a moderate in South Carolina politics. He was a strong defender of slavery and states’ rights but saw secession as viable only as a last resort and with the complete cooperation of other southern states.

Cheves declined an offer to join President James Madison’s cabinet as secretary of the treasury, and he retired from Congress in 1815. In 1819 President James Monroe appointed Cheves president of the Second National Bank of the United States.

Like the national organization, the South Carolina Christian Coalition has been heavily focused on political activism, stating that members “are driven by the belief that people of faith have a right and a responsibility to be involved in the world around them.”

Clyburn represents the state’s “largest and poorest legislative district,” and this has led him to support legislation that addresses issues such as health care, transportation, environmental justice, and education.

Admitted to the bar in 1783, Colhoun opened a practice in Charleston. On October 8, 1786, Colhoun cemented his ties to the lowcountry elite by marrying Floride Bonneau, heiress to an extensive plantation in St. John’s Berkeley Parish.

On his arrival in South Carolina in November 1686, Colleton strictly enforced the antipiracy policy, apparently with some success. It soon became forgotten, though, as Colleton became embroiled in a furor generated by a pair of devastating Spanish raids on South Carolina in August and December of the same year.

The chief theme in the early history of the Commons House was its transformation from an impotent institution to an imperious political body that jealously guarded its immense authority.

The Compromise of 1808 settled the issue of representation of the upcountry and helped to unify the state. Ironically, what began as a movement to protect backcountry interests reached fruition only when economic changes in the upcountry meant that upcountry and lowcountry planters found much on which to agree.

In South Carolina the dominion of the Conservative Party had a specific beginning and ending: the election of the Confederate hero Wade Hampton III as governor in 1876 and the election of Benjamin R. Tillman as governor in 1890, following a bitter campaign in which Tillman had vilified the Conservatives for being wedded to the past and neglecting the state’s real problems.

Although revised several times until abandoned in 1698, the Fundamental Constitutions framed the colony as a social hierarchy, encouraging new settlement based on landownership and a provision for religious freedom.

Convict leasing came to an end in South Carolina in the 1890s. Its origins lay in the economic demands of a war-torn region and in whites’ desire to use the state’s criminal justice system to control a newly emancipated black population. Changing economic circumstances in the 1890s robbed leasing of its financial appeal.

With the aid of John Locke, who was a member of his household and secretary to the proprietorship, Lord Ashley wrote the Fundamental Constitutions for the colony and oversaw arrangements for the expedition that brought the first permanent English settlers to South Carolina.

Emulating the progressive policies of his predecessor, Cooper proposed an ambitious reform program, notably statewide compulsory public school attendance.

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.

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.