The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-04-29
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|, We now come in the order Of our subject to
treat Of the various new sects Of philosophers
that have appeared of late years in France and
in our free States, who, disgusted with society
as it exists, propose to reorgaDize it OH entirely
new principles. We have never heard of a con
vert to any Of these theories in the slave States
II we are not all contented s&iIl none see evils
of such magnitude in society as to require its
entire subversion and construction. We shall
group all these sects together, because they all
concur in the great truth that free competition
is the bane of free society; they all concur too,
in modifying or wholly destroying the nsttu-
ton of private property. Many of them, see
ing that property enables its owners to exercise
a more grinding oppression than kings ever did,
would destroy its tenure altogether In France
especially, these sects are headed by men OF
| great ability, who saw the experiment of liberty
and equality fairly tested in France after the re-
volution of 1892 They saw, as all the world
did, that it failed to promote human happiness
or we'll being.
France fourd the consulate and the empire
Ravens of bliss compared with the stormy
ocean of liberty and equality on which she had
been tossed Wise, however, as these Social
lists and Communists Of France are they cannot
create man, tree, or new system of society
these are Gods works, which man may train,
trim and modify, but cannot create. The at
tempt to establish government on purely theo-
retical abstract speculation, regardless of cir
cumstance and experience, has always failed /;
never more signally than with the Socialists.
The frequent experience OF the Able Sieyes
paper structures OF government, which lasted 80
short time, should have taught them caution;
| but they were boiler reformers than he; they
had fair field for their experiment after the ex-
| e o,,J
their failure was complete and ridiculous The
Abbe's structures were adamant compared to
theirs The rule of the weak Louis Napoleon
was welcomed as fortunate escape from their
schemes of universal benevolence, which issued
in universal bankruptcy.
| The sufferings Of the Irish, and the complaints
of the radicals and chartists, have given birth to
! a new party in England, called Young England
| This party saw in the arrangement and hoslili-
ty of classes, and tho sufferings Of the poor the
same evils of free competition that had given
rise to socialism in France; though less talent.
ed than the Socialists, they came much nearer
discovering the remedy for these evils
Young England belongs to the most conser-
vative wing of the tory party; he inculcates
strict subordination of rank; would have the
employer kind, attentive and paternal in his
treatment of the operative.-The operative,
humble, affectionate and obedient to his en-
ployer. He is young, and sentimental, and
would spread his doctrines in tracts, sonnets
and novels but society must be ruled by sterner
stuff than sentiment. Self-interest makes the
employer and free laborer enemies. The one
prefers to pay low wages, the other needs high
wages War, constant war, is the result in
which the operative perishes, but is not van
qushed he is hydra-headed, and when he dies
| II, l. Q,,t oharo ;r;o
strength. The competition among laborers to
get employment begets an intense war more
destructive than the war from above. There is
but one remedy for this evil, so inherent in free
society, and that u.s. to identify the interests of
the weak and the strong, the poor and the rich.
| Domestic slavery does this far better than any
other institution Feudalism only answered the
purpose in so far as feudalism retained the fea-
lures of slavery. To it Slavery Greece and
Rome, Egypt and Judea, and all the other dis
| tinguished States of antiquity, were indebted
for their great prosperity and high civilization
prosperity and civilization which appear al
most miraculous, when we look to their igno-
rance Of the physical sciences. In the moral
sciences they were our equals, in the fine arts
vastly our superiors. Their poetry, their paint
ing, their sculpture their drama, their elocution
and their architecture, are models which we i'm
itate, but never equal. In the science of gov
eminent and of mo;als in pure metaphysics and
in all the walks Of intellectual philosophy, we
have been beating the air with our wings or re-
volvng in circles, but have not advanced an inch.
Kant is not ahead of Aristote--and Juvenal
has expressed in little more than a line the mod
ern utilitarian morality.
| Quis enim yirtutem amplectitur ipsam Pr9min
ST tollas!
Terence himself slave, with heart no doubt
filled with the kindly affections which the rela-
ton of master and slave begets, uttered the loft
lest sentiment that ever emanated from unin-
spired man..
Homo sum humani nihi n me alienum puto.
But this high civilization and domestic slavery
did not merely co.exist, they were cause and eff.
| feet Every scholar whose mind is at all inn
bued with ancient history and literature, sees
that Greece and Rome were indebted to this
institution alone for the taste, the leisure, and
| the means to cultivate their heads and their
hearts had they been tied down to Yankee
notions of thrift, they might have produced n
franklin, with his "penny saved is penny
rnined !" they might have had uttarian phi
osophers and invented the spinning jenny, but
they never would have produced poet, an
orator. n scul ptor or an architect they would
never have uttered lofty sentiment, achieved q
glorious feat in war, or created single work of
art
| A modern Yankee, or Dutcbman, is the fair
result of liberty and equality. French character
has not yet been subdued and tanned into insig-
niicance by their new institutions, and besides
the pursuit Of arms elevates and purifes the sen
timents of Frenchmen In what is the Yankee
or Dutchman comparable to the Roman, Athe
Man, or Spartaul In nothing ssve his care o
} his pelf and his skill in driving bargain. The
ruins of Thebes, of Ninevah, and of Balbec, the
obelisks and pyramids of Egypt, the lovely anc
time defying relics of Roman and Grecian art
the Doric column and the Gothic spire, alike at
test the taste, the genius. and the energy of so
ciety where slavery existed.
Quis locus,
Ouo regio in ferris non nostri plena labors
And now equality where nre thy monuments
|, And echo answers where Echo deep, deep
, from the bowels Of the earth where women ant
children drag out their lives in darkness. bar
messed like horses to heavy cars loaded with ore