American Scripture (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Pauline Maier
- First Published: 1997
- Type of Work: History
- Time of Work: 1776-1865
- Setting: The United States
- Principal Characters: Thomas Jefferson, William Henry Drayton, George Mason, Abraham Lincoln
- Genres: Nonfiction, History
- Subjects: Freedom, United States or Americans, Politics, Revolutionaries, Colonies or colonization, Authors or writers, Revolutions, Civil War, Eighteenth century, Politicians, Congresses or conventions
- Locales: United States
On April 23, 1776, several months before adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress, William Henry Drayton, the chief justice of South Carolina, converted the opening of the Court of General Sessions in Charlestown into a historic event. He ended his routine charge to the grand jury by taking it upon himself to declare South Carolina independent of Great Britain. As if that were not enough, he spread on the record a “catalogue of . . . oppressions” that the colonists had suffered at the hands of King George: “Nature cried aloud,...
[The entire page is 2168 words long]
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