Manuel Pereira; Or, The Sovereign Rule of South CarolinaAdams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
General
Manuel Pereira; Or, The Sovereign Rule of South Carolina
Adams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
African Americans -- Fiction; Biographical fiction; Pereira, Manuel -- Fiction; South Carolina -- Fiction
An office connected with the judiciary, so long held as one of high
responsibility and honorable position, is now held merely as a medium
of miserable speculation and espionage. It is an elective office, the
representative holding for four years. The present incumbent was elected
more through charity than recompense for any amiable qualities, moral
worth, or efficient services to party ends. A more weak man could not
have been drawn from the lowest scale of party hirelings, though he had
abdicated the office once before to save his name and the respectability
of the judiciary. It may be said, he was elected in pity to speculate
on misery; and thus it proved in the case of MANUEL PEREIRA. This
functionary was elected by a large majority. Could his moral worth have
been taken into consideration? We should think not! For several times
have we been pointed to two interesting girls,--or, if their color was
not shaded, would be called young ladies--promenading the shady side of
King street, with their faces deeply vailed, and informed who was their
father. The mother of these innocent victims had been a mother to their
father, had nursed him and maintained him through his adversity, and
had lived the partner of his life and affections for many years, and
had reared to him an interesting but fatal family. But, no sooner had
fortune begun to shed its smiling rays, than he abandoned the one that
had watched over him for the choice of one who could boast no more than
a white skin.
If men who fill high places live by teaching others to gratify their
appetites and pleasures alone, instead of setting a commendable example
for a higher state of existence, by whom can we expect that justice and
moral worth shall be respected?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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