The Charleston Hurricane of 1822; Or, the Law's Rampage

Winthrop D. Jordan

WELL, there goes another firm fact of life. We have here both an object lesson and a dramatic exposure of an outrageous professional scandal. Michael P. Johnson has a long record of devoted adherence to previously neglected evidentiary material, notably in his creative use of the mortality tables of the United States census. Here he is on more difficult ground--nearly quicksand, given the subject in question--but I think very largely persuasive.1	1
Unless, of course, he is guilty of the "unrelenting carelessness" (p. 926) he so gently charges Edward A. Pearson with. I very much doubt that he is. Yet I need to reiterate the disclaimer in my review of Designs against Charleston.2 I do not have ready access to the two key manuscript records concerning the Vesey conspiracy nor indeed to an original edition of the related book published by the court.	2
Mention of this handicap helps a little to delineate the dimensions of the professional scandal. Ordinarily, scholars expect to and are able to rely implicitly on the accuracy of quoted material. Especially is this the case with the printing of lengthy manuscripts. Professional exchange among historians would be rendered impossible if they had always to check whether some historian has quoted, say, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson correctly, since the internal logic of such an inquiry would require ascertaining whether Julian Boyd got the matter right in the first place. We simply cannot run around constantly checking such materials.	3
Of course mistakes happen. Especially is this the case when different versions exist of purportedly the same document. These brief comments are based on a typescript of Johnson's remarks (the second version sent me by the William and Mary Quarterly), labeled "final proofread version," that itself has a half-dozen typographical errors.3 In a very minor way, this progression has an eerie resemblance that I trust will have disappeared in the final printing. Even through the finest screens of care, errors can creep in, so we are thrown back on trust.	4
Professor Johnson's essay is difficult to evaluate for another reason. While it is persuasive in its predominantly destructive mode, its latter portion seems a bit fragmentary. Though his concluding discussion of developments in the state legislature and articles in the Charleston press is very suggestive and interesting, the whole is scarcely a complete discussion of the Vesey Plot and its ramifications. His own bipartite bibliographical list suggests that much more is forthcoming, especially concerning rumor, literacy, and reading. Some of the references on these matters seem a bit of a stretch for present purposes, but perhaps they will not be so in his projected "Conjuring Insurrection" that is finally promised in footnote 135.	. . .