South Carolina, which takes so forward a part in this treason, hesitated originally, as is well known, with regard to the Declaration of Independence. Once her vote was recorded against this act; and when it finally prevailed, her vote was given for it only formally and for the sake of seeming unanimity.[207] But so little was she inspired by the Declaration, that, in the contest which ensued, her commissioners made a proposition to the British commander which is properly characterized by an able historian as “equivalent to an offer from the State to return to its allegiance to the British crown.”[208] The hesitation with regard to the Declaration of Independence was renewed with regard to the National Constitution; and here it was shared by another State. Notoriously, both South Carolina and Georgia, which, with the States carved from their original territory, Alabama and Mississippi, constitute the chief seat of the conspiracy, hesitated in becoming parties to the Union, and stipulated expressly for recognition of the slave-trade in the National Constitution as an indispensable condition. In the Convention, Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, while opposing a tax on the importation of slaves, said: “The true question at present is, _whether the Southern States_ shall or shall not be parties to the Union.” Mr. Pinckney, also of South Carolina, followed with the unblushing declaration: “South Carolina can never receive the plan [of the Constitution], _if it prohibits the slave-trade_.” I quote now from Mr. Madison’s authentic report of these important debates.[209] With shame let it be confessed, that, instead of repelling this disgraceful overture, our fathers submitted to it, and in that submission you find the beginning of present sorrows. The slave-trade, whose annual iniquity no tongue can tell, was placed for twenty years under safeguard of the Constitution, thus giving sanction, support, and increase to Slavery itself. The language is modest, but the intent was complete. South Carolina and Georgia were pacified, and took their places in the Union, to which they were openly bound only by a most hateful tie. Regrets for the past are not entirely useless, if out of them we get wisdom for the future, and learn to be brave. It is easy to see now, that, had the unnatural pretensions of these States been originally encountered by stern resistance worthy of an honest people, the present conspiracy would have been crushed before it saw the light. Its whole success, from its distant beginning down to this hour, has been from our timidity. There was also another sentiment, of kindred perversity, which prevailed in the same quarter. This is vividly portrayed by John Adams, in a letter to General Gates, dated at Philadelphia, 23d March, 1776:-- “However, my dear friend Gates, all our misfortunes arise from a single source: _the reluctance of the Southern Colonies to Republican Government_.”[210]