In 1836 Colonel William Drayton, the head of an extensive South Carolina family who was then living in Philadelphia, published an odd book. Titled The South Vindicated from the Treason and Fanaticism of the Northern Abolitionists, it tried to justify the South’s position on slavery on the basis of custom and law. Drayton had been both a lawyer and a member of Congress from his native South Carolina, and he based the core of his argument in favor of slavery on the existing laws of the United States. Other parts of the book, however, relied on popular opinion and rumor of slave revolts that never materialized. The South Vindicated is largely forgotten today, but it serves as an interesting response to arguments in favor of the abolition of slavery that were then gaining ground in the United States.