Background
Arthur Middleton was the son of Mary (Williams) and Henry Middleton, 1717-1784. He was born at "Middleton Place" on the Ashley River, near Charlestown, now Charleston, South Carolina.
Arthur Middleton was the son of Mary (Williams) and Henry Middleton, 1717-1784. He was born at "Middleton Place" on the Ashley River, near Charlestown, now Charleston, South Carolina.
Arthur was educated in the colony and in England, part of the time probably at the academy in Hackney. On April 14, 1757, Arthur was admitted to the Middle Temple to read law.
In 1764, Arthur became a justice of the peace and in October was elected to the colonial House of Assembly, in which he soon became a member of the committee to correspond with the colonial agent in London, and served until 1768. In May 1768, he took his wife to London. Visiting southern Europe, they spent some time in Rome, and in September 1771, they returned to South Carolina to settle down at "Middleton Place, " which he inherited through his mother. The next year he was again elected a member of the Commons' House of Assembly. In the anxious days before the Revolutionary War actually broke out he sat in the first provincial congress. He served on the general committee, on the secret committee of five that arranged and directed the action of the three parties of citizens who seized powder and weapons from the public storehouses on the night of April 21, 1776, and within a few days raised 1, 000 guineas to support colonial resistance, and on the special committee appointed on May 5, after the receipt of a letter from Arthur Lee in London intimating the possibility of British instigation of insurrection among the slaves of the American colonies. After the arrival of the news of Lexington he continued his activity and on June 14, became a member of the first Council of Safety, upon which devolved the executive power of the colony already in the midst of revolution. In the second provincial Congress he was elected to the new Council of Safety, on November 16, 1775. As a leader of the extreme party he advocated the excommunication of all those who refused to sign the Association and the attachment of the estates of those who fled the colony, and he looked without disfavor on such activities as the tarring and feathering of Loyalists. Constantly he urged the preparation of Charlestown harbor against attack. On February 11, 1776, he was appointed to the committee of eleven to prepare a constitution for South Carolina. A few days later he was elected to the Continental Congress, but not until South Carolina's constitution was written and adopted and the council of safety superseded by a new government did he travel northward to claim his seat. The first record of his presence is for May 20, and he was present to sign the Declaration of Independence. In January 1777, he was reelected and continued in the Congress until October of that year. He left little imprint on the records of that body and absented himself from sessions to which he was elected. He was reelected in 1778, but declined the election, and he failed to attend in 1779 and in 1780, although he had been elected on February 5, 1779, and on February 1, 1780. In 1775, when President John Rutledge vetoed the bill to enact the new constitution for South Carolina and resigned his office, Middleton was chosen as successor, but declined. During the siege of Charlestown in 1780, he served in the militia, was taken prisoner at the capture of the city, and was sent to St. Augustine as a prisoner of war. Exchanged in July 1781, he presented his credentials to the Continental Congress on September 24, was reelected by the Jackson borough Assembly, and sat in the session of 1782. After the war, Arthur repaired the damages suffered by his properties and devoted himself to planting. He was an original trustee of the College of Charleston. He died at Goose Creek, survived by his wife and eight of their nine children.
Quotations:
"Priesthood is not a convenient, historically conditioned form of Church organisation, but is rooted in the Incarnation, in the priesthood and mission of Christ himself. "
"The priest is Christ's slave, and Christ himself took the form of a slave and became obedient to death. So the priest in serving human needs lives a Godward life, possessed by God and witnessing that only when lives are utterly possessed by God do they find their true freedom. "
"We are to introduce our people into the life of the Church, which is salvation, that they may grasp its meaning, its contents and purpose, to taste and see how good the Lord is. "
"There is a kind of thinking in the Church that wants to reduce the priest to a mere functionary, a managing director, where administration rather than doctrine and worship are to determine the form of the Church. "
"There is a rising generation in this country who do not know God because of a general decay of religion. "
"The Church's note must be a supernatural note which distinguishes incarnation from immanence, redemption from evolution, the Kingdom of God from mere spiritual process. "
"As priests uphold their people in prayer, so their people are to uphold them with prayer and love, for he cannot work without his people. "
"The Incarnation is the medicine of the soul, undoing the Fall and bringing man to the Tree of Life, and the office of a priest is to administer this medicine in the sacraments. "
"The task of a priest, in some respects, may be different today, but the principles upon which Herbert built his life as a priest are of universal application. "
On August 19, 1764, Arthur was married to Mary, the daughter of Walter Izard. They had nine children. His daughter Isabella married Daniel Elliott Huger, and his two sons, Henry and John Izard Middleton, carried on the family tradition of distinguished achievement.
1717 - 13 June 1784
1721 - 9 January 1761
26 July 1753 - 19 August 1797
15 November 1750 - 22 April 1792
5 July 1756 - 8 May 1784
January 1760 - 20 August 1834
15 September 1754 - 10 November 1789
31 July 1747 - July 1814
15 October 1783 - 12 June 1865
25 November 1780 - 25 August 1865
22 October 1776 - 1 May 1813
13 August 1785 - 5 October 1849
28 September 1770 - 14 June 1846
