Semi-weekly Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1851-1852, 1851-07-18

! accomplished the object OF its mission. Very
respectfully, &C.,
Jons P. RICHARDSON, JR.
/ GRAFTON. -.a'
; Memory and imagination are, doubtless, the
most inseparable of the human faculties. 1t is
difficult to recur to the past without indulging
in comparisons with the present and specula
tons sn the future. We may not evoke the
shade Of departed events without contempa.
timg both theiractual and prospective influences,
and the changes which they have wrough ht and
! are still operating on the human destiny. On
10 occurrence of this day, consecrated as it has
! been TO national "reminiscences, are reflections
of this kind calculated to assume 4 deeper in
tcrest or more solemn import. Whether in
retrospect or Experimentation on the
threshold Of new events or in the initiative of
the future, or only in the wake of preceding
causes-whether. in short, it be The past, the
present, or the anticipated there are materl-
ais enough in the topics they suggestion thought
and anxiety, as we'll as for exult:tlon.
! Little more than half century has elapsed
since the political world has broken, as it were,
its lcaden ceremcnts of despotisn. Little more
than this short cycle of time has transpired,
when loyalty was the only test Of religion, and
right accessible alone through treason and re.
brllion. When the quvering bowels Of the
slave warmed the feet of his tyraat lord, when
the baste was living tomb for all violated
allegiance, and when, as now, the law rules the
prince as well as the subject. protects the gov
erned as well as empowers the governor and
asserts majesty as high above the palace as
the cot, it requires certainl the utmost stretch
OF imagination to compress incidents of so dis
similar a character in.the short epoch Of seven
ty-tive years, i'll which they are actually com.
prised.
That all this should exclusively be the work
Of a few doomed and prosecuted men, who, un.
der the denuncations of an angry sovereign
aud a powerful empire, had the boIdness to as
sert their Cwn rights and their country's free
dom, would have been announced in prophesy
as the blindest ntatuation. That light should
have CLEANED from the councils of these wilder
ness reared patriarchs to mantle the christian
world with Il flood of civil and political rad-
ance, to iumlne the dungeon and to conAa.
CRATE the throne, to beam unquenched through
the blood OF revolutions, to rise undimmed
above the hecatombs of martyred and martyr
ing victims, to emily ghten the intellect to spread
a world wide intelligence, to convulse nations,
and yet to leave all purer, brighter, calmer than
before, was, indeed, one of those wonderful
phenomena which mankind could have been
prepared by no moral or historical experience
to anticipate.
Nor is this all. We have been placed, by
the events of this day. as high OH pedestal of
moral as politcalintelligence Who ever heard,
previous to its development, OF tolerated aud
harmonized religion in the midst of evangelical
enthusiasm9 Of party strifes to preserve, and
not to destroy, the constitution Who esti-
mates virtuous herolsln, military renown, and
an ennobling patriotism, but by the standard
of Washington! Who does not glide through
the long lapse of ages between Perces and
jefferson, to look for high examples of con.
sumate craftsmanship? Where was gallantry
more embodied than in Sumter, or :. Fabian
wisd,m better displayed than in Marion! Da-
vd slew his giant adversary with a sling the
Roman Cousul's noble sou fought and conquer.
ed the cnemys champion in single combat.
But when we search history for examples OF
personal exploits, they fade into the ordinary
incidents of common life, in comparison with
the energetic daring of our Manning-grap
bling a British major ut the head Of his column
and marching with him through the hottest o.
the action to the American lines.
But to the arts. the sciences, and to litera
ture. have we not given an impulse and al
epoch, quite rs memorable as the moral ant
political phenomena TO which We have alluded
Could steam, for instance, have expanded it:
distance annihilatinp influence under tho irnr