I have been reading a book called The History of Edgefield County (South Carolina). It is an 1890 book that was never reprinted.
After all, there are some aspects of Massachusetts history and the history of Jewish migration into New York City that have not yet been covered, so who has time for South Carolina?
Anyway, one problem that Edgefield County, which is on the northwestern edge of South Carolina, had was that all the law courts were in Charleston. Taking a felon all the way from Edgefield to Charleston was not worthwhile.
So Edgefield set up its own vigilantes. Students of Southern history will know the term they went by, The Regulators.
At first, the authorities in Charleston raised hell that Edgefield would dare take the law into their own hands that way. But those “vigilantes” forced them to put law courts in Edgefield County.
Which reminds me of the Minute Men on the Mexican border today. You can take action or you can sit there and beg. The authorities don’t care if you beg. But if you take the law into your own hands and threaten their power and their livelihood, it is a whole different matter.
#1 by Jay on 04/10/2005 - 11:58 pm
Bob, our American history has been shaped, if not birthed, by vigilantes. From the Sons of Liberty and the tar and featherings to Bill Quantrill and the James Boys to the Old West to the previous incarnations of the Klan and now to the Minutemen.
That…and not paying taxes. 🙂 God, what a great country!
#2 by Bob on 04/11/2005 - 12:54 pm
It was birthed by rebels.
#3 by Jay on 04/11/2005 - 2:04 pm
Do you really see that much of a difference?
#4 by Peter on 04/13/2005 - 3:59 pm
Jesus was a rebel.
#5 by Peter on 04/14/2005 - 11:15 am
By the way, what the heck is “birthed?” Isn’t that a verb from a noun from a verb?
What’s wrong with “born?” I guess that’s too simple.
Was your grampa recently deathed?
#6 by Peter on 04/14/2005 - 7:48 pm
Just a pet peeve of mine.
I shiver whenever I see a “Birthing Clinic.” EEoo.
#7 by Bob on 04/14/2005 - 9:18 pm
Peter, I think “birthed” is actually a very old-fashioned term.
I didn’t know anybody used “birthing clinic.”
But everything old is new again.
In the South, we routinely referred to an older unmarried woman not as “Miss”
but as “Miz.”
Now “Miz” is an ultra-PC term everybody thinks the Women’s Libbers created.
#8 by Bob on 04/14/2005 - 9:22 pm
In the old cartoon “Pogo” the characters used Southern terms. One of the
characters was “Miz Beaver.”
One of my favorite quotes comes from Miz Beaver:
“Don’t take life so serious, son. It ain’t permanent.”