The previous week, Governor Haley had prohibited camping on the statehouse grounds, alleging the destruction of shrubbery and urination in the bushes. She did not pause to consider why the occupiers would destroy the bushes they were using to tinkle in. She evidently had been so busy flying to out-of-state fundraisers in other people's private jets that she never noticed that Mayor Benjamin of the City of Columbia had allowed the protest to put a port-a-pottie in a parking space on Sumter Street.

Of course, people have been doing everything the governor complained of around the statehouse for years. They're homeless. It was only when politics got involved, the sleeping bags were out in the open and someone actually reduced the amount of use of the bushes by bringing in a construction site toilet that the governor got alarmed.

The parks and public greens of South Carolina can fill with unseen homeless people and the bushes can reek with the leavings of their excretion, provided no one suggests that South Carolina needs better education or higher paying jobs in the governor's world. "It's a great day in South Carolina" as long as we're all quietly stumbling towards becoming the nation's low wage, regressively taxed, toxic dumping ground for the rest of the United State and parts of Europe. Any job, no matter how poorly compensated or heavily subsidized is her redeeming achievement.

In Haley's new world of endless out-of-state fund raisers and fantasy Sarah Palin "A Star is Born" call ups where she becomes Rick Perry's vice president (or maybe Herman Cain's) the parks can fill with desperation sent there from foreclosure proceedings and bankruptcies as long as nobody is singing "We Shall Overcome" or making any signs.

In her world, its okay to arrest people for camping at the statehouse when they're not because all their gear was hauled off in a truck an hour earlier. However, then you are arresting people for sitting on the grass and even a governor can't make that illegal without some cooperation from the legislature, which she has a hard time obtaining.

It's difficult to see South Carolina, even the small part outside Haley's office when her only view is the one reflected in a mirror provided by some out-of-state organization trying to secure even lower taxes for rich people. It was for that reason that the City of Columbia refused to provide a paddy wagon and reenforcements to arrest the 19 protestors. A letter from the mayor made it clear that they would not support any attempt to make illegal arrests, an opinion shared by the chief of police.

The march left the statehouse headed north on Columbia's attractive but thinly peopled main street. They made a stop at city hall to thank the mayor, reading his letter to the governor. The took a turn down to the police department where the cops were startled to receive a noisy demonstration in their favor ending with a mass "thank you" chant.

It was a bit before 6 p.m. when the small march made it back to the statehouse, having handed out hundreds of flyers. Nearby the S.C. Department of Public safety had gathered all the officers it had to enforce the governor's order that there be no protests after 6 p.m. on the statehouse grounds.

It was said there were six public safety police cars with officers in riot gear around the corner. I never saw them. What I saw were hundreds of people gathered on the lawn awaiting the prohibited moment, ready to challenge the governor's orders.

They assembled peaceably. They handed out printed literature. They made speeches. They petitioned the government for a redress of grievances. They used the First Amendment as the civil rights curfew came and went without incident. They used the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States like it was their personal property and birthright, which it is.

Everyone, including the public safety officers, enjoyed the beautiful cool night. Whig Pizza ran out of salad across the street which is what happens when a bunch of hungry, many now middle-aged liberals, bring freedom to your street while trying to stay on their diets.

No one got arrested. There were far too many people and not nearly enough officers. There was the concern that everyone might save the state the costs of transportation and just march down to jail to be booked together, until there was no more room in the jail.

It was a joyous night. The old veterans of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam Protests bored the kids with the exaggerated tales of their youth. The kids tried to explain how they managed to broadcast video over the internet from a backpack stuffed with wireless equipment to people who had marched to Selma or burned their draft cards. There is no better place than camps of the hopeful on the nights of their victories, few though they may be.

Tomorrow, the governor may find muscle enough to support a crack down. She may silence the rising voices of protest in her state, which she has promised to the extreme rich right to be their personal policy playground. She may tap into the millions of dollars being raised to discredit the movement and teach people to hate their fellow Sandlappers for being public citizens with ideas and voices they're not afraid to use. Such days may come. They're likely to. What has been done to America won't be undone without a fight.

However that didn't happen on Nov. 21, five days after the governor degraded the power of her office by putting people in jail for sitting on the grass. It didn't happen on Nov. 21 because too many people stood up to be held down. That made Nov. 21 "a great day in South Carolina."

(William Hamilton (www.wjhamilton.com) is an attorney who lives in I'On Village. You can read and comment on this and other opinions found in the Moultrie News at www.moultrienews.com.