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Had he espoused that most popular of all doctrines in South Carolina-nullification and secession-and carried abstraction to distraction, James L. Petigru would have added another "Roman name" to that which has already passed from South Carolina's field of action.
The State was, at least on the surface, almost unanimous, in Charleston only the venerable James L. Petigru ventured to call himself a Unionist, and was in high heart and hope for its new venture. But, facing the palmetto flags so gayly unfurled to the breeze, still floated the Stars and Stripes over a little garrison in Fort Moultrie, commanded by Major Anderson.
This was his position when the captain found him. He proceeded to Charleston, and laid his case before James L. Petigru, Esq., United States District Attorney, and, upon his advice, returned to the scene of "war on the banks of the Edisto," to arrange his business; but no sooner had he made his appearance than he was thrown into prison, and there remained when we last heard of him.
On the other hand, nearly all the men who in 1850 favored the Compromise, in 1860 either remained Union men, like Crittenden, Houston of Texas, Sharkey, Lieber, Petigru, and Provost Kennedy of Baltimore, or, like Stephens, Morehead, and Foote, vainly tried to restrain secession.
That Beverley Tucker rightly judged that this speech of Calhoun expressed what was "in the mind of every man in the State" is confirmed by the approval of Hammond and other observers; by their judgment that "everyone was ripe for disunion and no one ready to make a speech in favor of the union"; by the testimony of the governor, that South Carolina "is ready and anxious for an immediate separation"; and by the concurrent testimony of even the few "Unionists" like Petigru and Lieber, who wrote Webster, "almost everyone is for southern separation", "disunion is the... predominant sentiment". "For arming the state $350,000 has been put at the disposal of the governor."
Petigru, in behalf of one Manuel Pereira, a colored sailor, who claims to be a Portuguese subject, articled to service on board an English brig driven into this port by stress of weather; the said Manuel Pereira being then in jail under the provisions of the act of the legislature of this State, passed in 1835, emendatory of the previous acts on the subject.
That Petigru was right in maintaining that South, Carolina merely abandoned immediate and separate secession is shown by the almost unanimous vote of the South Carolina State Convention of 1852, that the state was amply justified "in dissolving at once all political connection with her co-States", but refrained from this "manifest right of self-government from considerations of expediency only".
Soon after the State seceded, that stern old patriot, Judge J.L. Petigru, of South Carolina, came over, with one of his friends, to pay us a final visit, to express the deep sorrow and sympathy he felt for us in our trying position. As he knew that arrangements were being made to drive us out, he bade us farewell with much feeling.
The excitement was needless, for there was no one there to resist them, the only fighting-men present being Lieutenant R.K. Meade, of the engineers, and Ordnance-sergeant Skillen, who resided there with his family, and who was in charge of the work. Meade, himself a Virginian, had a sharp colloquy with Petigru, and expressed himself in severe terms in relation to this treasonable assault.
The contemporary testimony to Webster's checking of disunion is substantiated by the conclusions of Petigru of South Carolina, Cobb of Georgia in 1852, Allen of Pennsylvania in 1853, and by Stephens's mature judgment of "the profound sensation upon the public mind throughout the Union made by Webster's 7th of March speech.
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