Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/24

 George McDuffie. tions was the one he delivered at Calhoun's Mills, in the lower part of this county, on a Fourth of July occasion. In Stovall's " Life of Robert Toombs " we find the following description of McDuffie : "The most daring feat of young Toombs, just thirty years old, was in crossing the Savannah river and meeting George McDuffie, the great Democrat of South Caro lina, then in the zenith of his fame. An eye-witness of this contest between the champions of Van Buren and Harrison de clared that McDuffie was ' harnessed light ning ' himself." Another writer, in speaking of him, says : "His manner when speaking was nervous and impassioned, and at times fiercely ve hement, and again persuasive and tenderly pathetic, and in every mood he was deeply eloquent." As an orator he seems to have possessed a rare magnetic power. I have been told that on one occasion by simply raising his hand, as if by a magician's wand he in duced his entire audience to rise, and then, by a downward gesture, caused them to resume their seats. McDuffie was not only an able statesman and a splendid speaker on the hustings, but he was an eloquent advocate before a jury. Mr. Sparks says : "The rise of McDuffie at the bar was rapid. He had not practiced three years before his position was by the side of the first minds of the State, and his name in the mouth of every one, — the coming man of the South. It was probably owing to the defense made by him of William Taylor for the killing of Dr. Cheesboro that he became famous as it were in a day." O'Ncall, too, gives him high praise as a lawyer. After speaking of his success in other parts of his circuit, he says : " At Abbeville he managed successfully Patrick Duncan's cases (commonly called the Jew's land cases) for the recovery of fifty thou sand acres of land and upwards. His fee in that matter was in itself a moderate for

tune. Business from all quarters and at all courts, civil and criminal, poured in upon him." Like Henry Clay, Napoleon Bonaparte, and in fact most great men, McDuffie is said to have been a man of vaulting ambi tion. Although he was partly educated through the kindness of others, yet, when we re member that he was born of humble parent age, that he had to start out when a boy as a clerk to make a living, and that he had to stop while he was in college and serve for a while as a tutor in a private family, in order that he might procure the means to com plete his college course, he may well be styled a self-made man in the popular ac ceptation of that term. Certainly he was one if we take Mr. Cleveland's definition, — "one who embraces his opportunities and rises over obstacles." General Edward McCrady, in his admir ably written book entitled, " South Caro lina under the Proprietary Government," says that in the very formation and early history of this commonwealth there were implanted the germs of an aristocracy. In ante-bellum times and under what we are pleased to term the old regime, this aristo cratic class held most of the offices, con trolled public affairs, and shaped the policy of the State to a large extent. In this re spect South Carolina differed from her sister State just across the Savannah. In the latter a man was received upon his merit, and it mattered but little from what parent age he sprang. South Carolina aristocracy, however, was never so exclusive or prohi bitive as not to receive into its ranks young men of merit and promise, though of humble birth. McDuffie fully met these requirements, and consequently we arc not surprised to learn that he was cordially re ceived into the most highly favored homes and moved in the best society. Dr. B. M. Palmer, in his charming " Life of Thornwell," says that " a man who inherits a good