Delegates to Congress . Letters of delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, Volume 10, June 1 1778-Septmeber 30 1778
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Henry Laurens to To: Rawlins Lowndes


Dear Sir,
1st June 1778.

   My last to your Excellency of the 14th Ulto.(1) went by Messenger Sharp.

   The Committee to whom Your Excellency's Letters of the 13th & 18th April had been referred having made their Report to Congress the inclosed Act of the 29th Ulto. was thereupon produced to which I beg leave to refer.(2)

   Congress are truly sensible of the necessity of marking a limit to the Military in every State, be this as it may, from the tenor of a Resolve in an Act which I am to transmit to Georgia (3) there appears to me an opening for disputes between the Executive of a State & the officer commanding the Troops in such State. Even in cases where the Salvation of the State may be at hazard, a capricious, or a sensible Officer, according to my interpretation may under sanction


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of this Resolve withdraw every Troop from a State whenever he shall judge it proper to do so, notwithstanding a former instruction. (4) At best it will encourage dispute. Being restrained within my now Sphere of Duty when this was offered I could do no more than intimate in private my now feelings to one of my Colleagues & to the Member who had framed the Act.(5)

   As these Gentlemen received no impressions from my remarks, I therefore doubt the force of them. Nevertheless as I cannot divest my mind of its original Ideas on the subject, I take the liberty of Submitting my opinion to your Excellency.

   The Resolve is general, concerns the whole Union & may particularly affect the State of South Carolina. I shall therefore subjoin a Copy for the information of your Excellency & the Executive of the State.

   "Resolved, (29th May 1778) that all Military Officers & Soldiers in the service of the United States are & of right ought to be amenable to the Laws of the State in which they reside in common with other Citizens, but as to the propriety of undertaking distant expeditions or enterprizes or other Military operations & the mode of conducting them the General or Commanding Officer must finally judge & determine at his peril."

   A Commanding Officer as a little reflexion will shew, may shield himself in almost every Case by unanimity of voices in a Council of War & by means which have sometimes been practiced & which may again bc adopted.

   Under this Resolution I conceive every Garrison may be Stripped if not of all, of the best Men by a Commander of Troops whenever he shall determine the propriety of a distant expedition. The want of access to a Military Chest may be some Check, but if there be danger in the power adventitious Checks I humbly apprehend cannot Safely be relied on for preventing the exercise.

   I acknowledge I have not time at this Instant for examining & comparing the former Resolve alluded to above* -- as I remember the General or Commander cannot March out of our State more than ⅓d of the Troops without order of Congress or consent of the president. If this be all he can do now, why this new & general Resolve Your Excellency will judge & you will be pleased to receive this from me as a private & pardon me for making it the vehicle of the public Act first mentioned.


I shall do my self the honor of writing again by Capt Cochran such intelligence as the time affords but must at present conclude, which I beg leave to do with repeated assurances of being with great Regard & Respect, &ca.


Note: (ScHi).


1 Although Laurens' last official letter to South Carolina president Lowndes was dated May 14, he had also written to him privately on May 17, 1778.


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2 For the various resolves pertaining to South Carolina passed by Congress on May 29. see JCC, 11:551-53. Discussions of the provenance of these resolves can be found in the editorial notes to Laurens' May 14 and 17 letters to Lowndes and in his May 18, 1778, letter to William Moultrie. Laurens also enclosed a copy of one of these resolves-requesting an account of Continental stores in South Carolina-with a brief covering letter he wrote this day to Abraham Livingston, Continental agent in Charleston. PCC, item 13, 1:349.


3 See Laurens to John Houstoun, this date, note 2.


4 Laurens inserted an asterisk at this point to key his reference to "the former Resolve" in the next-to-last paragraph of this letter. The "former Instruction" mentioned by Laurens was a June 18, 1776, resolve whereby Congress decreed that not more than one-third of the Continental troops raised in South Carolina could be removed from there 'without the express order of Congress or the consent of the president of that colony." JCC, 5:462-63.


5 Francis Dana was the author of the May 25 resolve affirming the primacy of Continental Commanders over state officials in the conduct of military operations that Laurens is discussing here. See JCC, 11:554n.1.