Johnson, William, Jr.
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Following the war, Pinckney devoted his efforts toward rebuilding his law practice and his rice plantations.
It was Bennett’s response to the Vesey crisis for which he is best remembered. In a message to the General Assembly on November 22, 1822, the governor chastised Charleston authorities for the mass execution of alleged conspirators.
In all, related to Vesey’s plan, the Charleston courts arrested 131 slaves and free blacks. Thirty were released without trial.
South Carolina was the first to pass such a law and did so in the fearful months following discovery of the Denmark Vesey slave conspiracy in 1822 when Vesey, a free man, sought assistance from foreign free blacks. The goal of the legislation was to forestall potentially dangerous contact between nonresident free blacks and slaves.
The crisis, which began as a dispute over federal tariff laws, became intertwined with the politics of slavery and sectionalism. Led by John C. Calhoun, a majority of South Carolina slaveholders claimed that a state had the right to nullify or veto federal laws and secede from the Union.
