Excerpt from South Carolina Bench and Bar, Vol. 1

The most substantial glory of a country is its great men; its prosperity depends on the aptitude of the people to learn from their example.

There has been no time in the history of South Carolina, Province or State, in which the services of bench and bar have been of more consequence to the community than in that of the fifty years that this work will cover, and none in which the profession has been adorned with greater genius or more profound learning.

The battle fields of the South are strewed with the graves of learned lawyers who proved themselves equally capable as leaders in the war to which their patriotism called them as they had been leaders at the bar and in the Senate Chamber. And when the war was over the Reconstruction measures of Congress called for the exercise of the highest qualities of the profession. New and profound questions arose in regard to the fundamental principles of government, and their application to the anomalous condition of the reconstructed States. These had all to be met by the survivors of the war, and their sons, who had obtained their education amidst the greatest difficulties during the long war. We propose to give a true story of the brilliant record of the professional struggles of those who bore themselves so nobly and patiently and successfully through this period.

South Carolina, though one of the smallest States in the Union, has made more history and preserved less than any other State. This statement is especially true of the bench and bar. Many of the ablest judges, whose learning and dignity added a lustre and honor to the American bench and whose decisions are cited with admiration and respect throughout both hemispheres, pre sided over her courts. Every county in the State has produced great lawyers. The learning, eloquence and high character of the bar of this State is well known already, and constitute one of the brightest pages in her history.

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