The Feliciana Democrat. (Clinton, La.) 1855-186?, 1855-07-14
FELICIANA DEMOCRAT.
SOUTHERN EDUCATION.
LETTER OF THE Hun. JOHN PERKINS, in.
SOMERSET, MAY 0, 1855.

Centenary 0Ollege, April 9TH, was rccelv-
ed ten days since, and but for indisposition
should have been replied to at once. | am
obliged for the kind feeling you manifest,
and sincerely regret cannot accept the
invitation to address the Society Of your
College. 38i 6
/ feel deeply the Importance of educating
our young men at the South; and had cir
cumstances permitted l should have been
yleased to embrace the occasion of an ad-
dress ct your commencement to express my
self freely on the subject. l have long
made it point to watch the issues Of the
Northern press, and the past year pur-
chased course Of Northern school and col
lege books such as are in most general use,
and it seems to me impossible for youth to
be pressed through them and retain just
feelings towards the South, or proper ideas
Of it's rights under the Constitution. From
the frightful pictures of slaves at work I'M
der the lash, which ornament the child-book,
up to the sickly sentimentalism of their class
readers, and on through the higher law"
reasoning Of "Hicoks's Moral Science"
there is constant effort to impress the
youthful mind with the idea that slavery is
. great sin, for the existence of which every
American citizen is responsible until Con-
gress act upon the subject. The compeids
and condensed commentaries upon the Con
stiution, prepared for school and business
men and the only ones generally read by
their divines, and the great mass Of the peo-
pie are just such as are fitted to confirm these
early Impressions. have in my library
some eight of them, prepared under differ
ent names, and they all gloss over and mis-
representa- manner calculated to de-
ceive-the rights of the STAKEHOLDER under
the Constitutions; while they enlarge and
artfully magnify, by every possible construc-
tion, the degree Of power given to the Fed
eral Government over the subject. To my
mind, the certain result Of all this in the fu-
ture, is plain. The free States have now
the ascendency in the government. In less
than five years, issues Of the gravest char
acter will have to be decided in Congress.
There will be something more at stake
than the money value Of Southern slaves
To the South it will be question of exist
ence.
When that time comes l prefer to have
the young men of the South prepared to
speak from conviction of the wisdom and
policy Of our peculiar institutions. II
do not desire their judgment won over by
. perverted moral sentiment, or by ficti-
tious appeals to their passions. To confess
that slavery is great social and political
evil, is to prepare for battle by throwing
away our arms. 1t is worse-it is to plead
guilty and ask for mercy.
There is a philosophy at the bottom Of
this subject which is well treated of in some
of the French works on the organization /
Of labor, and which should be particularly
pressed upon our attention at this time, by
the growing conflict between capital and
labor at the North-dividing whole COM
munities into classes engendering hatred be-
tween trades, and sewing animosity and
jealousy, and ill-will between the rich and
the poor to degree, that one living at the
South, and rarely thrown into the mael-
stroms Of the Northern cities, cannot con-
ceive. There is work recently published
by Mr.. Fitzhugh, of Virginia, called " So
GEOLOGY for the South" which should be in
the possession Of every Southern gentleman.
1t is full of valuable suggestions on this
subject. and without necessarily endorsing
every sentiment of the writer, few can read
it and fail Of being confirmed in their attach.
ment to onr peculiar institutions. ASouth-
ern critic, speaking Of this work, has said,
with much truth: "The splendor, animation,
and crowded population Of the Northern
cities excite, bewilder, and delight South
ern men and their families. Compared
with the calm, easy Incidence of their own
painful sense of inferiority
depresses them when they go back to their
own homes. The difference is as between
q magnificent panoramic view, and dark
still landscape-life in action, and life in re-
pose.' Let them be contented," tho wri-
ter continues, the work OF Fitzhugh will
DO much to reconcile them to what they
,ave aud what they are, when he reveals
10 them the interior view-the miseries of
with its grim and hideous atten-
aants-its dire degradations as shown in
Penitentiaries and houses of refuge even for
the young"
To these indications of an unhealthy state
Of society in the North, the writer might
have added, the mingling of religion and
politics, the open pronigacy charged by