Always ready to feel affronted and to express outrage, Charleston seemed particularly inflamed. Announcements in two city newspapers called for the interrogation of every male citizen to “learn whether he is for us or against us in the conflict now waged by the North against our property and our rights.” Outsiders and free Blacks in particular merited close interrogation. Scrutiny became aggressive. Despite a lack of evidence as to their true attitudes toward slavery, two South Carolina teachers with Northern roots found themselves expelled from the town in which they lived. One newspaper
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