Excerpt from History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave, Vol. 3: Power in America I would unfurl the Palmetto flag, fling it to the breeze, and with the Spirit Of a brave man determine to live and die as becomes our glorious ancestors, and ring the clarion notes Of defiance in the ears of an insolent foe. Asserting the right of South Carolina to secede, he recommended immediate ac tion; and he predicted that the other Southern States will flock to our standard. These treasonable utterances Of a Senator of the United States were enthusiastically applauded. The next evening William W. Boyce, a Representative in Congress, responding to a serenade, defiantly declared that the South ought not to submit, and that the way to enact revolution is to stare it in the face. When an ancient philosopher, he said, wished to inaugurate a revolution his motto was: To dare! To dare! Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, an Old gentleman, for many years the editor Of an influential agricultural paper, a fanatic upon the subject Of Slavery, who afterwards achieved the dubi ous distinction Of firing the first Shot on Fort Sumter, and died a suicide, hastened to South Carolina to influence, as far as he could, that State to take immediate action. He expressed the Opinion that, if she remained alone, She would be able to defend herself against any power that would assail her. But be con tended she would not remain alone and would soon be followed by other States. The first drop Of blood, he said, spilled on the soil Of South Carolina will bring Virginia and every Southern State with her. But notwithstanding this free and fierce enunciation Of a purpose not to submit to the election of what was denominated a sectional President, and of a determination to redress what was proclaimed to be a palpable infringement Of Southern rights through the violent remedy Of revolution, large num bers at the North remained incredulous, and refused to believe that their Southern brethren would be guilty Of such folly and resort to measures so perilous and suicidal. They preferred. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com 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.