The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-04-29

Marion replied: The people Of Carolina form
two classes, the rich and the poor. The poor
are very poor the rich, who have slaves to do
all their work, give them no employment.
Unsupported by the rich, they continue poor
and low-spirited The little they
get is laid out in brandy, not in books and
newspapers; hence they know nothing of
the comparative blessings of our country, or
of the dangers which threaten it; therefore,
they care nothing about it. The rich are
generally very rich; afraid to stir, lest the
British should burn their houses, and carry
off their negroes"
After the war, he estimated that poor Car
DINA lost through her ignorance ST., 900, 900;
for ignorance begat toryism, and toryism be-
gat losses" Referring to the blessings of
education for the people, he said: "Look at
the people of New England. Religion had
taught them that God had created men to be
happy; to be happy, they must have virtue;
that virtue is not to be attained without knowl-
edge; nor knowledge without instruction; nor
public instruction without free schools nor
free schools without Legislative order"
South Carolina has sent many of her sons
into the councils of the nation, who have won
distinguished positions and high honors but
there is more philosophy, more wisdom, and
more craftsmanship, in these words of Francis
Marion, than can be garnered up from all the
eloquent utterances of the statesmen and ora.
tors she has sent into the councils of the Re-
public.
Mr.. Olmsted, in his work on the "Seaboard
Slave States" speaking of the educated Caro-
linians-ihat other class which, according to
the honorable Senator from South Carolina,
leads progress, civilization, and refinement
says that they habitually make great claims"
to culture. But | must observe, also, that 1
have been astonished at the profound igno-
rance and unmitigated stupidity have found
in some planters owning large numbers of
slaves"
A Southern-born gentleman, who had re-
sided in South Carolina, and who had travelled
in Spanish America, said to Mr.. Olmsted,
speaking of the Spanish and Hispsno- Indian
races, that he had seen, among the worst of
them, none so entirely debased, 80 wanting in
all energy, industry, purpose of life, and in
everything to be respected, as among exten.
sive communities on the banks of the Con.
garee, in South Carolina. They
are more ignorant, their superstitions are
more degrading, they are much less industri.
GUS, far less cheerful and animated, and very
much more incapable of being improved and
elevated, than the most degraded poems of
Mexico. Their chief sustenance is a porridge
of cow peas, and the greatest luxury with
and peas, with red pepper, which they call
hopping john"
Speaking of the sand-hilers, Mr.. Olmsted
says, that a rich rice planter described them in
these words: "They seldom have any meat,
except they steal hogs, which belong to the
planters or their negroes; and their chief diet
is rice and milk. They are small, gaunt, and
cadaverous, and their skin is Just the color of
the sand hills they live on. They are quite
incapable of applying themselves to any labor,
and their habits are very much Ike those of
the old Indians"
Northern gentleman, who had spent year
in South Carolina, said to Mr.. Olmsted, after
speaking respectfully of the weather. class
+" The poor whites, out in the country, are the
: meanest people ever saw half of them would
be considered objects of charity in New York"
Speaking in favor of manufactures, the Hon.
j. ID. Lumpkin, of Georgia, in 1852, said: 81
am by no means ready to concede that our
poor, degraded, halffed, halfclothed, and
ignorant population, without Sabbath schools,
or any other kind of instruction, mental or
moral, or without any just appreciation of
character, will be injured by giving them EN-.
ployment in manufacturing establishments"
Mr.. Olmsted says: 1t is evident that a
large part of the people of Georgia still have
the vagrant and hopeless habits of Ogle-
thorpe's first celonists, somewhat favorably
modified, it is true, by the physical circum-
stances which have made them superior to
absolute charity or legal crime, and also, per-
haps, by the influence of a freely preached,
though exceedingly degraded, form of Chris.
tianity. They are all coarse and irrestrain-
able in appetite and temper; with perverted,
eccentric, and Incorporate spiritual impulses,
faithless In the value of their own labor, and
almost imbecile for personal elevation
Mr. Taryer, of Missouri, in q work on Do
mestic Manufactures in the South and VEST
says 81 have observed, of late years, that an
evident deterioration is taking place in this
part of the population, the younger portion
of it being less educated, less industrious, and
in every point of view less respectable than
their ancestors"
Mr.. Helper, of North Carolina, says: g Power
ty, ignorance, and superstition, are the three
leading characteristics of the non-saveholding
whites of the South"
The reports of ecclesiastical bodies in the
South, of missionary, Bible, tract, educational,
and other societies, and the statements of col
porteurs, and other persons interested in the
intellectual and moral culture of the people,
furnish the fullest and amplest evidence to sus.
tain the declarations have made concerning
the poor whites of the slaveholding States.
Upon them, the evils of Slavery press with
merciless force. / trust the day is not far dis
tant when they will inaugurste policy that
shall at least emancipste themselves and their
posterity from thraldom hardly less endura.
BILE than the bondage of the black man. The
noble city of st. Louis has sent into the House
of Representatives FRANCIS p. BLAIR, IT., a
champion of the rights of the on-slsveholders
of the South. Let the oppressed poor whites
heed the voice and follow the counsels of such
a leader, and the day of their deliveranoe from
their Calling degradation will soon dawn.
There are signs that cannot be mistaken, in
the North and in the South, that there are por-
tons of the American continent, provinces in
Mexico or Central America, where, ultimately,
that slave population which presses hard upon
the poor whites of the South may find free
homes under the protection Of the Government
of the United States
Mr.. President, the Senator from South Caro-.
lima tells us that {" all the powers of the world
cannot abolish" "the thing" he calls Slave.
ry. "God alone can do it, when he repeats
the fat, the poor ye have always with you; +"
for the man who lives by daily labor" and
"your whole class of hireling manual laborers
and operatives, are essentially slaves I" Our
slaves are black; happy, content, unaspi.
ring; y" yours are white, and they feel CALLED
by their degradation" "Our slaves do not
vote; yours do vote, and, being the majority,
they are the depositaries of all your political
power; and if they knew the tremendous Sc
cret, that the ballot-box is stronger than any
army with banners, and could combine your
society would be reconstructed, your Govern.
ment overthrow, and your property divided"
The poor ye have always with you" This
fiat of Almighty God, which Christian men of
all ages and lands have accepted as the imper-
alive Injunction of the common Father of all to