South Carolina Democrats came to their senses Monday and agreed to abandon a plan to require a loyalty pledge to vote in today's first-in-the-South Presidential Preference Primary.

Stories that surfaced in weekend newspapers described a party and a state that few people recognized. It used to be that South Carolinians took their neighbor's word as a contract. The Palmetto State has metamorphosed into a different world than forefathers inhabited but it is still a place where people don't think they should have to pledge their allegiance in order to vote in a primary.

Instead of a handshake, the "party of the people" had proposed a signature -- on a loyalty oath. Party officials told reporters over the weekend the S.C. requirement has been in place since 1976 and the national party has required the pledge since 1984 in states that don't require voters to register by party.

Longtime requirement or not, the pledge, even for the day, was a bad idea. If the dwindling number of S.C. Democrats want more company, throwing up such roadblocks to those independents who may want to call the party home isn't a way bring them into the fold. Democrats also would have missed an opportunity to attract a few people from the state's dominate Republican Party.

Stories in weekend newspapers say Democrats didn't want to keep independents away, instead they wanted to deter Republicans from voting in the primary and tainting the results.

Neil Thigpen, a Francis Marion University political scientists who has been involved in Republic politics, told The State newspaper in Columbia that the plan could reduce participation.

Thigpen rightly observed that one reason Palmetto State Democrats wanted an early primary was to increase the impact of independents and moderate Southern Democrats.

A former South Carolinian now teaching political science at Rice University was more emphatic. It sounded "like one of the stupidest ideas I've heard in a long time," Earl Black, formerly of the University of South Carolina, said in an Associated Press story. "... It just steps on the effort of South Carolina Democrats to create a situation to build the party."

A quarter century ago, Beaufort County Democrats slammed the door in the public's face, keeping them from important discussion at a county convention. Fortunately, Democrats across the state saw wisdom in not repeating history -- especially with the national media has the state under a microscope.

A political scientist once observed that Americans, South Carolinians included, would cross an ocean to fight a war, but wouldn't cross the street to vote in an election. Whatever the obstacles have been heretofore, Democrats have now decided not to throw one up in this first in the South Democratic Party Presidential Preference Primary. Showing up to vote should be statement enough.