Sugar planter. [volume] (West Baton Rouge [i.e. Port Allen, West Baton Rouge Parish, La.]) 1856-1925, 1856-02-02
Revolutionary Relics.

Great thoughts never die. Great deed
} which are but the manifestation of .hes
thoughts, enjoy like Immortality. w,
have now embalmed in cur chronicle
those great ideas which, like arrows O
fire, entered the brainof Archimedes ane
i created there an intellectual cenfaera.
| ton that the waters Of Lethe, fabled tt
destroy all over which they whemed
have left intact; still standing, as firm
and durable as the pyramids, Or the mon
sLer creation Of Druidieal times.
Our own American Revolution, the
exponent and full development OF au idea
which had been foresltadewed 10 the
barbaric efforts and wild t!lroes Of many
nations before--in the revolt of the Scla'
tyi in tho uprising Of the Roman gladia'
,oriiin many a brave but unsuccessful
effort Of oppressed people-aside from
its historic embalmment, has another of
| a more literary nature which will endure
when our present histories have gone to
join the lost books Of Livy, and those
other printed or written pages Of which
we haveleft only the titles and general
nature. That immortality is one which
no learning has been gifted TO compre'
hend by its own direct causes. 1t is not
scientific, nor is it classic; but, in every
sense of the word, popular. It springs
from the people; lives in them, aud IS
Affected by them. 1t is the actual, warm
hearty and sincere offspring Of the feel.
ing and emotion oil the masses. 1t is
generally lyric, rough, unmetefed and
crude; but continent OF life ana vitality
which learning cannot touch--which
erudltIon yaiaiy seeks to embody. We
still have the ideas and resolves Of the
patriots of olden times in the lines which.
expressed them--the songs which ac.
companied the monster tea>party Of
Boston, when they made their bay
eauldron for hundreds of chests of pure
Bohea-ths wild ballads that inspired
the cowboys who Tallston and his gren-
adiers-the rough and rude metres that
made the waters Of the Mississippi and
its fringing woods as vocal as the oaks of
Dodona, when our kinsmsn came down
from the s'dark and bloody ground" TO
fight out a great problem on the plains
OF Chalmette.
These relics and evidences are as note
worthy as any which we have; are far
more spirited and correct than Bancroft,
CT De Tocqueyille. They were written
for the immediate period of which they
treated for a body ofjudges as strict as
the ancient Areopagii, and as severe as
the Venetian Council Of Ten." The
writers were compelled to embody in
them the actual condition of affairs
and the resolution to which that condi
ton gave rise. They were not only to
be chronicles and brief epitomes OF the
times, but political histories and treatises
concerning national economy. They
were to paint part as gloomy as Ian
gaug could depict; present oyerctouded
with disaster and foreboding, and a fu
iurs which might realize the dreams Of
More and Ponce de Leon, or fill up the
full measure Of foreboding which Aaron
Burr eEdeavored to realize. That the
men who sat themselves to the task were
competent for the labors they assumed,
their execution of those labors is the best
evidence. They knew the heart of the
nation, for they were constituent por-
ton Of it, They knew the suferings, for
the endured them and the high resolve
with which they were to be met and con-
auered, fer the resolution sprang from
their own hearts. Possessing thus all
they essential requisites and being, more
over, endowed with that high resolve
which makes the coal upon the altar to
any achievement worthy of fame and af
ter remembrance, they breathed out the
whole in melody which, if it had the
roughness OF an Ukraine colt, had also
his strength and FIRE. There was none
of that literary dandifcation and fine
writing which emaseulates composition
in the more refined ages, but a direct,
straightforward expression of sound feel.
ing, upon sound subject, which thrilled
the hearer or the reader like the sound
Of a trumpet, and fitted him for deeds Of
the highest emprise.
1t is said of tue Dorians that their
courage had that excellent edge, that
when going into battle, the soft notes OF
the flute aud recorder were all-suffieiens
10 an accompaniment. The world has
seen but one such people, and our own
were not Of the order. They could fight
and, if need be, die for the great cause
.hey upheld but they wanted the in
sniration OF letters 10 rausa them and OF