Excerpt from Conscience and Civil Government: An Oration Delivered Before the Society of Alumni of the College of Charleston, on Commencement Day, March 27th, 1860

Really, there is but one issue before the country, and that a mighty, though a simple one. More than a score of years ago, the sagacious mind of the great statesman of South Carolina descried in the political horizon a cloud not then larger than a man's hand. Since then that cloud has risen and expanded, until now the political heavens are black and threatening with its overhanging masses. Re flection has profoundly convinced me that the chief peril to our institutions lies in the misinformed and misdirected moral sentiments of one great section of the country. The Constitution and law of the land have lost their moral force and commanding authority, in consequence of the fact that the conscience of the people has been placed in an attitude of resistance to them. I trust, therefore, that in consider ing the question of the relations of conscience to civil government, I Will be regarded as no more doing violence to the genius of this occasion, than to the prevailing temper of the times.

The theorv that civil government is the result of a con Ventional arrangement suggested by the inconveniences of.what has been termed a state of nature, though supported by some names of no mean repute, appears now to be very generally abandoned. It seems to be the prevailing Opinion that this theory is destitute of countenance from the die; tates of reason and the principles of Revelation. The science of government has gained by the establishment of a juster theory in regard to the origin and nature of the State, a theory Which makes an organism, supposing the existence and exercise of regulated authority, a necessity arising out of the. Fundamental constitution of human nature. Endowed by their Creator With social as well as individual instincts, it is impossible to conceive that men can exist except in society, unless it be possible to suppose that they could live in a permanent condition, Which would contradict the necessities of their being. The true state of nature, therefore, is not that in which each man, in accord ance With the law of individuality, tends to live apart from every other man in a state of isolation, but that in Which, though maintaining his individuality in a measure, he enjoys the fellowship of his kind. He does not enter society from choice, but at his birth forms an integral element of a social state Which springs from the very constitution of human nature, and is necessary to the development of its laws and the progression 'of its faculties. \vhile, however, it is true that mankind are thus, of neces sity, led to exist in society, it is also clear, as has been shown by an able writer, that the antagonism, Which in the social state arises from the conflict of individual interests, by tending to destroy the benefits growing out of the rela tions thus formed, necessitates the existence of govern ment. Society must exist, and its well-being renders it necessary that it should be regulated by lawful authority, terminating on its several members in the form of govern ment. This necessity, springing from the essential nature of man, is but another expression for the Will of his Creator, impressed upon his constitution in each of its several aspects, as bodily, mental and moral. Reason, therefore, basing its conclusions upon the facts of the case.

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