[117] Works of John Adams, Vol. II. p. 498. See also Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. IX. p. 52. And now listen, if you please, to peculiar and decisive testimony, under date of 29th March, 1779, from the Secret Journals of the Continental Congress. "The Committee appointed to take into consideration _the circumstances of the Southern States_, and the ways and means for their safety and defence, report, ... That the State of South Carolina (as represented by the Delegates to the said State, and by Mr. Huger, who has come hither at the request of the Governor of the said State, on purpose to explain the particular circumstances thereof) is UNABLE to make any effectual efforts with militia, by reason of the great proportion of citizens _necessary to remain at home, to prevent insurrections among the negroes_, and to prevent the desertion of them to the enemy; that the state of the country, and _the great numbers of those people among them_, expose the inhabitants to great _danger_, from the endeavors of the enemy to excite them either to revolt or desert."[118] [118] Secret Journals, Vol. I. pp. 107, 108. Here is South Carolina secretly disclosing her military weakness, and its ignoble occasion: thus repudiating in advance the vaunt of her Senator, who finds strength and gratulation in Slavery rather than in Freedom. It was during the war, and in the confessional of the Continental Congress, that, on bended knees, she shrived herself. But the same ignominious confession was made, some time after the war, in open debate, on the floor of Congress, by Mr. Burke, a Representative from South Carolina. "There is not a gentleman on the floor who is a stranger to the feeble situation of our State, when we entered into the war to oppose the British power. _We were not only without money, without an army or military stores, but we were few in number, and likely to be entangled with our domestics, in case the enemy invaded us._"[119] [119] Annals of Congress, 1st Cong. 2d Sess., II. 1484, March 30, 1790. Similar testimony to this weakness was borne by Mr. Madison in open debate in Congress. "Every addition they [Georgia and South Carolina] receive to their number of slaves _tends to weaken, and render them less capable of self-defence_."[120] [120] Ibid., 1st Cong. 1st Sess., I. 340, May 13, 1789. The historian of South Carolina, Dr. Ramsay, a contemporary observer of the very scenes which he describes, to whom I have already referred, also exposes this weakness.