The southern press., 1850-11-02

TRI-WEEKLY, --- -..-r-h- W
,,rzyrv . $3.50. g-asal 2 90
,v of E,Iwood Fisher to the Review
- "Insticc, on the North and the South,
~ u, E,J;,ors of16e Louisrille Jo,vnal::
1so.aonence of having mislaid the third
NJ, III so nf Justice" this reply is few days
-. th.n II would have been. Within that time
Ibovs received, from the poltcness Of the author,
rayew of f.the North and the South," by Os.
,,nod Mussey-a work of more ability and de-
rorum than any have seen on the same side. /
have also perused a review of the lecture, BY a
Norlh Caronian, which the editor Of the Nat
tiona Era has had the candor and confidence 10
publish side by side rcith the lecture. i wei
come all these assailants to the field :; for il, not
withstandng all their ability and research, it can
he shown they have totally failed in storming the
positions of the lecture, it may be hoped that
prejudice even the most distorted will be some
what rectifed, and fanaticisu even the most
fiery may be somewhat cooled. must however
be allowed to interfere between my assailants
themselves, with some of whom the propensity
or the habit OF injustice has become so invetcr-
.le that, not content with misrepresen;ing me,
they abstract from each other without ac-
acknowledgement. 1t may be said that these re-
viewers, having the same work before them, and
observing the same palpable errors, md familiar
with the obvious facts or arguments for their
correction, are peculiarly liable to run into siu-
lar and identical criticisms. This might be so,
If they did not unfortunately contrive to fall
into the same blunders, and into the san quaint,
peculiar, and absurd methods of evasion I'd
sophistication The writer of aJustice" is pecu-
liarly obnoxious to this imputation, as shall
show; and, II he had been candid enough to no.
tify the reader of his obligations to his predeces-
sors, his mission would have been apparent as
the Southern or Kentucky exponent of North
en notions, with copious interpretations of his
own turbid defamation, recondite ignorance and
overweening vanity.
But to proceed. He commences his third
number with imputing to the author of the lee
ture design to mistify and mislead its readers,
by changing from time to time the statement of
the question at issue; and observes "Ths
shifting OF questions is never practised by fair.
minded and clear-headed reasoner." In the first
number the lecturer was accused of timidiiu fol
not presenting to a Cincinnati audience the doc.
trnal or philosophc instead of the statistical ar
gument of the sSouth Carolina school," The
writer of "Justice" is hard to please The lee.
lure has certainy not been regarded at the North
or the South as timid or eyasive; but on the
contrary has been, with unusual unanimity. pro-
nounced both by its friends and its foes to be
quite the reverse. The writer of "Iust ce" COM
plains that the point undertook to coutroyert
was at first stated as follows: @That the South
is considered as declining, and that negro slavery
has with extraordinary nnanimity been fixed on
as the great and efficient cause of Southern de-
cline; and it is now assumed that the South.
particularly the older States, is undergoing the
process of impoycrishment depopulation, and
decay, and that the next statement of the oucs
lion in the lecture is as follows: "Yet in oppo-
stlon to the existing opinion on the subject, |
maintain that the South is greatly the superior
of the North in wealth. in proportion to the
number of their citizens respectively" And
Justice" observes that felt myself to be una
bic to controvcrt the first proposition without
mlsrepresenting it, and therefore did so hy pre-
tending 1t to be "idenicaF with the last. Now
neither pretended thNt these two PROPOSITIONS
were identical, nor does the lancuawe admit of
amy such construction. | stated one :,s preva
lent belief, and announced the other iiShs;opposi
ton" to it as my belief; aud nudctFooA to es
tablish the latter by proof. Aud is it not in Cp
position! 1t is not strictly correlative as Jus
tice" meant to say when he said Identical; but
was not satisfied with asserting or proving
mere negative, but wanted to show, by proyn
this and other propositions, not only that TIL
Northern notion was erroneous, but to prov
more-to prove that the South instead of de
be evident, if it could not be shown that, atte
starting about even, the South was not only nov
richer in proportion to the number of her citi
zens. but better OFT in other respects than tha
section whose wonderful advancement was tn,
staple of Northern defamation. And vet th
undertaking of mine to prove more than mega
tive, to establish propositions that would no
only refute but reverse a prevalent opinion, i
pronounced by the sagacity and candor of "Jus
tice" to be an attempt at evasion Again, h
charges that L present another question after
wards, thus, 'whlch is the most profitable invest
ment of capital-in land or slaves as is usual il
sIaveholding States, or commerce and manufac
lures as in Northern States? ?' He says: "Nov
this is an important question, and it is inciden
tally connected with the subject-but Il as no
The question aohich Mr. +. undertook 10 discuss
Now in the paragraph in which stated the prev
alent opinion, and the one which held in oppo.
sition to it, and in the very next sentence there.
after, are these words: "The North. and even
many in the South, have assumed decline in
manufactures and commerce ODE decline OF
general prosperity. This is an error. The
policy of the Federal Government and the do.
mestic institutions of the Southern States, have
indeed been unfavorable to the latter in those
pursuits, but the agriculture of the South has
maintained and advanced its prosperity beyond
that Of any other people"
Having thus stated one of my propositions and
the grounds for it, and having adduced the evi.
dcnce of superior Southern wealth, it became
the question whether the peculiar modes of in.
vesting capital in the South were not more pro-
titable than those of the North-whether agri-
culture conducted in the one was not more
lucrative than manufactures and commerce. as in
the otlIer-and this must be obvious to all who
are capable of consecutive reasoning. And in
stead of being all artiiice or an evasion it was
putting the question precisely as the North de-
lights to state it, and "Justice" himself de-
lights to argue it. For, after attempting himself
to escape from the evidence of the superiority o.
Southern actual wealth-after resorting to re-
mote nations, remote times, and remote hypotbe
"es-after borrowing the area argument and
carrying it to the climax ofthe ridiculous-attel
making his calculation of the production of the
several States, and distancing the extravaganza
OF Seaman-after losing himself and his arpu.