distasteful to most readers, and in no very high favor with us. A
deep interest in the welfare of South Carolina, and the high esteem
in which we held the better, and more sensible class of her
citizens, prompted us to sit down in Charleston, some four years ago
(as a few of our friends are aware), and write this history. The
malady of her chivalry had then broken out, and such was its
virulence that very serious consequences were apprehended. We had
done something, and were unwise enough to think we could do more, to
stay its spread. We say unwise, inasmuch as we see, and regret that
we do see, the malady breaking out anew, in a more virulent type-one
which threatens dire consequences to this glorious Union, and bids
fair soon to see the Insane Hospital of South Carolina crammed with
her mad-politicians.

Our purpose, the reader will not fail to discover, was a high moral
one. He must overlook the means we have called to our aid in some
instances, remember that the spirit of the work is in harmony with a
just sense of duty to a people among whom we have long resided, and
whose follies deserve our pity, perhaps, rather than our
condemnation. To remain blind to their own follies, is the sin of
weak States; and we venture nothing when we say that it would be
difficult to find a people more dragged down by their own ignorance
than are the South Carolinians. And yet, strange as it may seem, no
people are more energetic in laying claim to a high intellectual
standard. For a stranger to level his shafts against the very evils
they themselves most deprecate, is to consign himself an exile
worthy only of that domestic garment

Tar and feathers. in which all who think and write too freely, are
clothed and sent away.