Kanawha Valley star. [volume] (Charleston, Va. [W. Va.]) 1856-1861, 1856-11-18
lafi.aas and Yankees.

SiStS 10 va 49, ioESbstsSb - y
both. Their. capacity for evil has been
severely cell. BY the States in whose
bosom each Of these races has existed in
an equal degree; England and America
have, at different stages of their history,
each made strenuous exert ions to rid
themselves of The political dominion
Of this disagreesbIe people. Itsis a
n,stter Of rongraeulation, that each in a
measure las been successful. Puritan
ism has only been respectable in adver5
SHY, it has never stood the sererer test OF
prosperity. When Laud and Stafford
sought 20 shackel their religious faith and
to destroy theirpolitical rights, the Puri-
tans were by the force Of circumstances,
constrained to assume the position and
character OF the friends Of civil and re-
religious liberty. They elaine SO much,
for themselves. they denied 50 much to
others, TIL at the English people took the
Puritans at their own estimate. 1t was
impossible TO conceive that the Puritan
could grafxitously make himself SO mis-
cradle, and be 80, disagreeable: to his
neighbor. 1t was imagined that he must
be governed by some high moral prinei-
pie, that an ordinary man might under.
stand 10 another, but could not himself
practices. The experiment. was tried.
Puritsnism Was dominant in England!
Tho reign Of the Saints had commenced
on Earth! The English people have
been satisfied with one experiment, it has
never again been repeated. True, Charles
and Laud and Stafford were tyrants, but
theirs was 10 petty tyranny; theirengines
were Acts of Parliament and standing
armies. The tyranny Of the Puritan WAS
both grand and petty. it extended from
great measures Of State, down to reg
ula,ion of the conversation. the dress, the
manners Of the lowest peasant in the land.
For Churchnan 70, worship God. af.r
the manner Of his fathers and for youth
to. kiss maid after the fashion Of
youths, were equally crimes Of great
magnitude. 1t was penal offence fora
man to curl his hair, or wo man to dance
around 5 Mayspole. The Government
laid i,sSheary hand on every man and en-,
deayored to mould and him to the same
disagrceable standard, to q nasal, can
ting. prick-cared 'hypocrita- In addition
to their own peculiar vices, the Puritan
had all Of the old vices Of the: Cavalier,
but he did not exhibit them in the same
dashing.- drunken and profane style.
When he committed a great crime, he
garnished it with text. 1.-The killed his
enemy in cold blood, it was "tbe sword Of
the Lord and of Gideon "slav them
hip and thigh" Ifhe Plundered a house,
'''rhe spells Of the Egyptians were dsliyed
into his han ds." England shook itself
free from Puritanism, and crowned
Charles Il l. And. though Charles was,
a hcartless spiritless libertine, and al p!
though he lacked alike principle and
patriotism, his death created the profound
est sorrow, that the English people !
i
have ever manifested at the death Of
a King. and solely, for the reason that
with all his vices, he had zone virtue
he did not cant, he was no hypocrite.
The English are eminently a practical peo
pie; in the days Of the Commonwealth
they conceived an immence disgust for
Purtanisn. Each subsequent year has
lesscned and continues to lessen its in
Auence in the Government until now II is
scarcely felt. Debarred from its natural
channel, Purtianism has manifested its
natural Princ iplc (Which may be de-
scribed as obstinately maintaining the
beam in its own eye, and .fanatically
reaching at the mote in It's neighbor's),
on foreign ground. Accordingly, We
find the Putitanic manufacturer, who
starre and brutalize their own factory
hands at home;> organizing societies for
tho purpose Of supplying the infant in
habitants Of the Tropics with flannel
waist-coats, and the unlettered canibals
Of the Feejee with moral pocket bandker-
chiefs. We find the: Puritauic Dutehcs
of Sutherland, who has depopulated a
thickly peopled district, and who has torn
down and unthatched the roofs of hum
bred cottages, and driven a noble peo-
pie to. pine and perish in exile, writing to
her ''dear sisteIs'' in America, "for God
sake TO do something forthe poor negro"
What the Puritan was in England, the
Yankee has been and is in America
His influence, too, has culuminated.-
He, 100. fed to America for civil and re,
ligious liberty, and in hisprosperity pur.
sued with Ere and iiagot every one who
presumed to differ from him in politics
or religion. Aud when his sterile land