June 5, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
We would earnestly commend the attempt at relief undertaken by the Banks of this city, as sketched in the subjoined resolutions. No object could be presented which would more command the heartfelt sympathies of our whole people; none which more explicitly involves their fidelity and honor. To abandon these martyrs to the cause, is to abandon the cause itself, and cover it with shame and reproach. The people of Louisiana have peculiar claims on South Carolina, and all who have stakes themselves upon the independence of the South. Hers was a most generous and uncalculating part in joining the Atlantic Cotton States. Her great interest found a market and protection in the Union. Her connections with the mighty West were intimate and almost controlling, and a necessity. In the face of overwhelming difficulties, at the sacrifice of immense obvious interests, with uncalculating devotion, yielding to her sympathies, she flung herself into the breach and staked her all upon the issue.
It is for us that her sons are in exile and her women and children outcasts and beggared. Not then to our humanity is the appeal, but to our good faith and honor. Not to do our utmost in their behalf is to be treacherous – to turn our backs upon those who, in our weakness, risked their all for us – to be more faithless and cruel than BANKS or BUTLER. We should count nothing our own, which we have to give which they need. They have bought us with a price – and all that we are of have, should be at their disposal, and with free hearts shared with them. Giving to our utmost we are but paying a debt, and proving ourselves capable of gratitude, fidelity and honor. We but state the case; we need not press it. We feel that our people will be true to themselves, and will eagerly embrace the opportunity, in their unstinted offerings, to vindicate their claim to the exalted position they have assumed in the tremendous issues raised by themselves. Their swords and their purses are equally the property of their allies in peril or distress.