A Visit to the Philadelphia Prison: Being an Accurate and Particular Account of the Wise and Humane Administration Adopted in Every Part of That Building (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from A Visit to the Philadelphia Prison: Being an...)
Excerpt from A Visit to the Philadelphia Prison: Being an Accurate and Particular Account of the Wise and Humane Administration Adopted in Every Part of That Building
With r'e'fpeét to the anecdotal facts contained in the Publication, relative to the 1nterior management of the prifon, they have all fallen under the immediate oh fervation of the writer while the tables, and other information On the fame head, have been extracted and collected either from'the dockets or other records and documents of the prifon, or from perfonal con verfations with the infpeétors. The whole, however, may be relied on as minutely accurate and authentic, as the manufcript was feveral weeks for perufal ln the hands of. Two infpeétors, to whofe attention and care in pointing out the errors, the author begs leave to offer once more his fincete acknowledgments.
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(Excerpt from Caroliniensis
Here then is an Opinion, extr...)
Excerpt from Caroliniensis
Here then is an Opinion, extra judicially expressed, that under Our Law m its present form, the Moor, the Algerine, and the Nantucket Indian sailo1, may be taken up. As' peréons of Color and sold as slaves. This opinion, in a pamphlet 'must be remembered is not to be confined to Charleston. It will probably' 'go to washington, and from thence to the. Brit~ ish Cabinet, after going the rounds of the Northern States. Will not then our State abroad suffer in her reputation, when this is declared to be the law of this land. Is not the very assertion calculated to produce, 111 Massachusetts, the greatest 9 1'
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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
The Crisis: Or, Essays On the Usurpations of the Federal Government
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Robert James Turnbull was an American lawyer, planter, writer and politician from South Carolina.
Background
Robert James Turnbull was born in January 1775 in New Smyrna, Fla. He was the third son of Andrew and Maria Gracia (Dura Bin) Turnbull, the latter a native of Smyrna. His father was a Scotch physician who had obtained a British grant in 1766 and soon thereafter had led to Florida several thousand colonists from the region of the Mediterranean. The project failed, Dr. Turnbull embraced the colonial cause in the Revolution, thereby forfeiting his grant, and he moved to South Carolina in 1782.
Education
The son was educated at an academy at Kensington (London), and studied law in Philadelphia, and under John Julius Pringle in Charleston.
Career
Admitted to the bar in 1794, Turnbull began practice in Charleston, but in 1810 he gave up his profession and retired to a large plantation, maintaining, however, a residence in Charleston.
He wrote A Visit to the Philadelphia Prison (1796), which was published in French in 1800 and attracted considerable attention. He contributed a communication on plantation management and the treatment of slaves in South Carolina to the anonymous work of Edwin Clifford Holland, entitled Refutation of the Calumnies Circulated Against the Southern and Western States, Respecting the Institution and Existence of Slavery among Them (1822).
There is no record of any other product of his pen for several years, but his later writings indicate that he was an interested observer of prevailing tendencies in American life and government.
In 1827 he published his most important work, The Crisis: or, Essays on the Usurpations of the Federal Government, which appeared after two-thirds of the essays had been published in the Charleston Mercury over the pen name, "Brutus. " It is doubtful if the thinking of the people of any other state has ever been so impressed and influenced by a single publication as was that of South Carolina by this work. It is often said incorrectly that in it Turnbull originated the doctrine of nullification in its South Carolina form, but it cannot be denied that it was "the first bugle-call to the South to rally", and it prepared the ground admirably for the seed others were soon to sow. Frankly confessing his feelings to be more sectional than national, he "struck at every evil in sight in such a bold, fearless, direct manner as to win the unbounded admiration of the masses".
Having tasted blood, Turnbull was in the thick of the fight for the rest of his life. The legislature in 1828 passed a series of resolutions written by him affirming the compact theory with each state as judge.
In 1828 Hamilton and Calhoun proclaimed the nullification doctrine. Turnbull had supported Jackson in 1824 and 1828, but in 1830 he became his caustic critic. In that year he wrote The Tribunal of Dernier Ressort, and in a notable public address, declaring that he had "trodden no path which has not been hallowed by the footsteps of Jefferson", he again passionately proclaimed his principles and his adherence to the "Carolina doctrine. "
Just a year later, he addressed the State Rights and Free Trade party, defending nullification as the "Rock of Safety for the Union, " and declaring his readiness to oppose secession with his last breath, except as a last resort from tyranny.
He was in the same year a member of the Free Trade convention at Columbia and wrote its report.
In the nullification convention he took a leading part, writing its Address. Upon Jackson's proclamation, he volunteered for military service. He refused to believe the experiment a failure. "Is it little to have put a bit in the teeth of the Tariff-Mongers?" He thought it no little victory to have "foiled the barbarian fury" of Jackson. "With but our one-gun battery of Nullification, we have driven the enemy from his moorings, compelled him to slip his cable, and put to sea. " But, he added, the contest was only well begun, and at the second session of the convention he made an elaborate speech in advocacy of the ordinance which he wrote and proposed requiring a test oath and nullifying the "Bloody Bill" of Congress.
Though widely popular and distinctly politically minded, he took no part in public affairs, except to serve on the special court in 1822 for the trial of the Denmark Vesey conspirators. His influence was largely developed during the last decade of his life, and by his writings rather than by the spoken word, though he was no mean public speaker.
An ardent Jeffersonian, he became haunted by the spectre of national consolidation under the doctrine of implied power, angered by the sectional aspects of the protective tariff--a scheme "for rendering the South tributary to the North, " and convinced that the growth of anti-slavery agitation imperiled the South. The South, he felt, must resist. "Let us say distinctly to Congress, 'Hands off--mind your own business. ' . If this fails, let us separate. It is not a case for reasoning or for negotiation".
Seeking to show that Congress and the Supreme Court had transformed the Constitution into a "dead letter" which might mean anything or nothing, he attacked the nationalism of Monroe and Calhoun. He declared that since the chief interest of the North and West was in usurpation, while that of the South lay in the preservation of the compact, the interest of the former demanded that the government become more national, and that of the latter that it become more federal. The remedy lay in resistance to implied power, to the tariff, and to the anti-slavery movement, in insistence upon the compact theory, and in reliance upon the sovereignty of the states, even to the point of separation. The essays are effectively written, well-reasoned, and, admitting their premises, unanswerable.
In February 1832 he attended and addressed a similar convention in Charleston, and on July 4 he delivered an oration in which he characterized nullification as the "inherent, unmodified, all preserving principle of American liberty, " as "the ground-work of Mr. Jefferson's faith, " and as "a medium course between those unspeakably dreadful evils Submission and Secession, " the rightful remedy for usurpation. He pleaded for the preservation of a federal union of sovereign states, arguing that the state governments could not enslave the people because they could impose none but direct taxes. "As long as these republics remain free, sovereign, and independent, it is impossible that tyranny can ever advance a single step in our country".
Connections
Turnbull was three times married: first, on January 10, 1797, to Claudia Butler Gervais of Charleston; second, to Valeria, the daughter of John Lightwood of Charleston; and, third, to Anna Beresford McCall of Charleston.