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Whig Loyalist

Today I learned that the Governor of South Carolina offered to surrender our state as a neutral territory in the Revolutionary War. Or at least is wasn't something I remembered learning about the American Revolution. The title here Whig Loyalist isn't really a thing, just an idea of where I might have walked the line on the whole independence issue.

We have this thing where we time out travel and events to avoid what everyone else is doing. The July 4th weekend is one of those weekends not to travel, so we planned a long weekend of porch squatting. At 91°, it'll slow you down to a lethargic southern sweet tea ‘oh well’ sorta state of mind. After a relatively lively porch conversation, I put a little bit of thought and internet'ing into our nation's independence. I think I might have been a Loyalist like a lot of folks in Ninety-Six and Charleston, South Carolina. I've walked the old indian trail at the fort at Ninety-Six1 thinking about it each time. The 500 loyalist there held off a 1000 man robbery lead by a gun for hire named Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko2. Two loyalist strongholds in South Carolina were Charleston and Cambridge/Ninety-Six. I learned that John Rutledge3 actually offered to surrender the state of South Carolina as a neutral territory in the Revolution but folks like William Moultrie4 weren't giving up their plantations without a fight.

Most scholars agree that the primary motive for declaring independence was financial and centered around the ability to expand westward and the right to slavery. The leaders of the revolution largely kept the latter ambition private and similar conflict or ideology was going back in England with the Whigs and Torries. A big chunk of discussion during the drafting of the Declaration of Independence5 was on removing Jefferson's denunciation of the slave trade. The Continental Congress were majority slave owners and Constitutional Convention was split down the middle. The war with England had already been going on for a year6 before it was drafted. It's another smelt it dealt it issue - the fear of being enslaved to the British - Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were adamant about it. The British had abandoned the slave trade and both sides offered freedom by fighting. Legal statutes never authorized slavery in England. It wasn't until after the revolutionary war that the abolitionist movement began. The Civil War just a hundred years later has roots in the founding father's writings - mostly regretted their defense of slavery. They cited the promises they had made to those same slaves during the Revolutionary War.

My great great... Charles Windham's (b. 1695) widowed mother sent him on a boat captained by Captain Robert Bolling7 from Portsmouth and arriving in Jamestown in 1706. He was sent over to help pay off a debt. Robert Bolling used headrights from importing indentured servants or enslaved people to acquire 5000 acres on the south side of the Appomattox. Charles eventually made it south and in 1750 he petitioned for 300 acres from George II in Craven County South Carolina. His son Edward Windham served in the Virginia House of Burgesses8 during the Fifth Virginia Convention9 which established the independence in the Commonwealth before the 2nd Continental Congress declared independence. Another son, Amos Windham fought in the South Carolina Militia and was dispatched by Francis Marion to rob the Brits at Wadboo bridge in present day Berkeley County. They weren't exactly loyalists.

But I'm pretty sure I'd been up here in the upcountry hold'n down the fort so to speak. Although tough to know exactly had I lived then, what my position would be - I'm gonna roll through some history and imagine it for fun. My family was in the rural southern colony descended from indentured servitude and entirely dependent on cotton and tobacco. And possibly sympathetic to slavery even though there's no directly of it. I think this would have been the capstone issue.

Not directly, that I'm aware of, in my line of ancestors across the pond was William Windham10, the whig statesman. I've previously noted how uncanny my dad and he look alike. The Whigs didn't want an absolute monarch whose authority came from God and preferred the power of Parliment which is was led to the Exclusion Crisis and eventually the Glorious Revolution. There's quite a bit more to it, but both the term Whig and Tory are derogatory. Whiggamors drove carts in Scotland and tóraidhe is an Irish word for 'outlaw'.

The reason I'm diving back into English history is because our independence was intertwined with the politics and policy of Great Britain. The conflicts of slavery and religion played a large role in both our founding and the English Revolution just a 100 years earlier. And the outcome and issues of which were prominent in our Civil War just 100 years later. Ever notice how close our flag is to that of The East India Company11. I mean, the Plymouth & Virginia companies12 ran the show. The Continental Union Flag is what was really raised13 at the Fifth Virginia Convention9 - the one in the middle with the Union Jack on it.

The Whigs of England, Scotland, and Ireland were the 'country party' and didn't dig the pope or divine rights. Charles Fox14 below was a Whig and James II15 was the last Catholic monarch.

Charles James Fox & James II of England

I think I'd be on the team Whigs16 on the other side of the pond, but there's a lot of mixing going on en route17. The party in the US is the forerunner to the Republicans. Can't imagine I'd been much on puritanism or down with manifest destiny since we were sitting on a little tobacco farm. Although I think I mighta been a Loyalist, an even tougher question is how would I have responded to the conferderacy. It's easy to respond in retrospect, but it's also easy to be convinced of dumb shit if all the folks around you are doing it. One of the most prominent propogandist for the confederacy, a fella named John O'Sullivan, also coined the phrase Manifest Destiny18 which the US Whigs opposed.

It was in South Carolina where John Calhoun started the exposition19 that created the nullification crisis and eventually Civil War. The Tariff of Abominations20 was a bill so bad—so "abominable"—that it would never pass but did. The first protective tariff was passed by Congress in 1816 and increased in 1824 before the bill in 1828. I might have been asking myself how any of these federal tariffs were helping me. And just as the Governor of South Carolina offered up the state as a neutral territory, the current leadership are now gearing it up for succession.

I'm not sure I would have gone along with wealthy planter class in the mid 1800s and I kinda feel like my position is still reminiscent of my indentured origins. It seems like the new sweet tobacco breeds in the south would have been great exports to all those smoking brits. We didn't exactly arrive here as opportunist and have survived relatively sustainably since. All of the current debate on taxes and tariffs just seam like another similar power struggle and I still can't vote with the weather. I'd like to think I woulda been in whig in England, a loyalist in the colonies, and royal sympathizer during the American revolution, a US whig, an abolitionist Republican, and then a Democrat when Thurmond went to work for Goldwater. I still like to pull for the little guys. Maybe that's from being a decendent of an indentured 11 year old still hanging around South Carolina.



Footnotes​

  1. Ninety Six National Historic Site - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety_Six_National_Historic_Site ↩

  2. Tadeusz Kościuszko - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Kościuszko ↩

  3. John Rutledge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rutledge ↩

  4. William Moultrie - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Moultrie ↩

  5. United States Declaration of Independence - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence ↩

  6. American Revolutionary War - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War ↩

  7. Robert Bolling - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bolling ↩

  8. House of Burgesses - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Virginia_House_of_Burgesses#W ↩

  9. Firth Virginia Convention - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Virginia_Convention ↩ ↩2

  10. William Windham - https://davidawindham.com/til/posts/william-windham ↩

  11. East India Company - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company ↩

  12. Virginia Company - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Company ↩

  13. Prospect Hill - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_on_Prospect_Hill_debate ↩

  14. Charles James Fox - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_James_Fox ↩

  15. James II of England - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_England ↩

  16. Whigs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whigs_(British_political_party) ↩

  17. Whigs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_Party_(United_States) ↩

  18. Manifest Destiny - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny ↩

  19. South Carolina Exposition - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Carolina_Exposition_and_Protest ↩

  20. Tariff of Abominations - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_Abominations ↩