Virginia Free Press

Farewell Address of Gov. McDuffie, delivered before the Legislature of South Carolina, December 12, 1836.

Fellow Citizens:—But a few moments will elapse before I shall retire, in all human probability, forever, from the stage upon which I have so long acted in the service of South Carolina. I cannot permit the occasion to pass without attempting to give some feeble utterance to the emotions it has so irrepressibly excited in my bosom.

In what manner I have acted the part which has been assigned to me in the great drama of public affairs, and in some of the most eventful scenes of that drama, it is not my province to determine. It is all that I can desire, and more than I can hope, that the favorable opinion for which I am now indebted to the partiality and kindness of my fellow citizens, may be ratified by the more stern and impartial judgment which posterity will pronounce upon my character and conduct. One thing I may be permitted to say, I trust without arrogance: that in all the situations to which I have been summoned: in all the exciting and engrossing scenes in which I have been called upon to act; and amidst all those allurements which habitually beset the path of a public man; in no solitary instance has any selfish purpose of interest or ambition operated for one single moment to break the intensity and singleness of my devotion to the interests, the honor, and the glory of South Carolina. In the self-devoting idolatry of my heart, South Carolina has had no rival.

But whilst I claim to have brought these undefiled, but humble offerings to her altar, I am at the same time deeply sensible that all these, and ten times more, would be but a poor and inadequate return for the manifold proofs of her generous and unfailing confidence, by which I have been uniformly sustained in all the trials and in all the vicissitudes through which it has been my fortune to pass.

Whatever may have been the exclusiveness of my devotion, and whatever estimate partiality may have placed upon my services, I still owe her a debt of eternal gratitude, the record of which is deeply inscribed on my heart, and which neither time, nor chance, shall ever obliterate. Wherever I may go; into whatever distant regions of the earth my destiny may carry me—my heart will be with you, and my prayers will be directed, with an unerring polarity, to the home of my affections, and to the land of my allegiance. And if—which may Heaven forbid—it should so happen, that in the rapid progress of those inauspicious events which are even now casting their ill boding shadows before them, South Carolina should be constrained to summon all her chivalry to the defence of her household gods and domestic altars,—yielding a prompt obedience to the sacred call, I will fly to her glorious standard "swift as the tempest travels o'er the waste of mighty waters," prepared and resolved, in common with every true and patriotic son of hers to defend and preserve her institutions and liberties, or perish in their ruins.

And now, sir, [to Governor elect,] it remains that I surrender into your charge the ensigns of the high trust to which you have been summoned. I trust, sir, you receive them untarnished from my hands. I am sure you will transmit them untarnished to the hands of your successor.

Fellow-citizens, with my most ardent and devout prayers for your prosperity, individually and collectively, I bid you farewell.