Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1849-05-25

Iicil, IL is absurd 10 assert that he not only
has no property in his slave, but that 9th
er property belongs equally to him. But
II tor any other purpose or view of politi-
cal economy, the slave be included with
the freeman in averaging the property of
a State, it will even then appear that in
the States have considered, the South
ern are still weather than the Northern
counting the slaves as persons and deduct
ing them from the property. So that in
no aspect of the question whatever, is
there any foundation in fact for the pop
ular delusion, that the Southern States
or any of them, are either now or hereto
fore, or likely to be hereafter inferior to
their Northern neighbors in wealth--but
the reverse.
The triumph of Southern enterprise and
capital in the accumulation of wealth be-
ing established as fact, demands of us
ADMINISTRATION of its causes-and this. I
think will materially elucidate the charac
ter of modern civilization, and particularly
that which has been developed in the u
! nited States.
The original methods of acquiring
wealth, adopted by men on their organi
zation into communities, was by conquest
or commerce. Hence the almost exclu
sively military character of one great class
of the ancient States, which resulted in
the universal empire successively of the
Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman
governments; and hence the rise of Tyre
and Carthage. Hence, also, in the mid
die ages, the empire of Charlemagne,
and the long protracted efforts of France
TO conquer England, and England to con
quer France-and the wealth of Venice,
Genoa, and Holland, AT later period
when the arts had made more progress,
manufactures were included in the means
of creating wealth. The policy of Eng
land has combined the three-conquest
commerce, and manufactures-and by
these she has succeeded in the construc-
ton of an empire which, for extent of ter
ritory and wealth, has never had a paral-
lei. The policy of England has been
dictated by her insular position. This
rendered it necessary for her to acquire
the empire of the sea to be secure from
invasion by great continental powers; and
with the dominion of the sea, it was easy
to establish great colonial empire. The
growth of such great power in com
merce, was the strongest possible stimu-
lus to progress in the arts and manufac-
lures; hence her success in them. But
an extraordinary developement of COM
merce and manufactures has always re-
suited in the concentration of large mass
es Of people in cities, which causes inc
quality of condition, great depravity of
morals, great increase of want, and of
crime; consequences that are fatal in the
tirst place to liberty in governments, and
hnally to independence in nations. This
tendency has been so OF and univer-
sal among the great States of all ages, as
to have caused the belief that communi-
ties, like individuals, contain within them
selves the seeds of dissolution which must
ultimately bring them to the dust.
BUD whether we consider State as a
moral being, whose essence consists in the
principles on which it is constructed, and
therefore not necessarily mortal, or wheth-
er we regard it as mere creature of the
race or persons that founded or inhabit
it, and therefore transient, there can be
no doubt that its prosperity is seriously
impaired by the evils referred to, that
generally attend the progress of civiliza-
ton.
Rural life has always been celebrated
by the poets for its innocence.
God made the country and man made the
town"
But 1T is kind of life that has seldom
been thought favorable to the accumu-
lation of wealth--the first want of civil
zation. 1t is also usually associated with
rudeness of manners. Hence the vota-
ries of ffortune and society preferred the
city, and ifto these we add the vast null
titude who seek the Immediately gratif-
cation of their appetites and passions,
which cities afford, at the hazard of fi-
!, ture want, we have clear solution OF the
undue tendency to city at the expense Of
country life This great evil, sufficient
ofitself to cast a stigma on civilization and
even ultimately to destroy it was for Che
first time successfully encountered and
conquered by the institutions of the
South: and in the great achievement
Virginia led the way. Amongst the ear
ly white settlers Of Virginia were many
of the Cavaliers who had beer driven into
exile BY the triumphs of the Roundheads
and of Cromwell The Cavaliers were of