Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1858-05-28

industry. such as u is huN SNAA tiSASNN~3- -
is, is not adequate to procure them hohesl.y
sncb ,upport as every white person is emit
tled "a. some of them meintain.a feeble and
;n;yrious competition with slave labor some
can scarcely be said to work at all !; they OBJ
tam preearious subsistence by occasional
iobs. by hunting, by fishing, sometimes by
plandering fields or folds, aud too often by
what Z in its effects far worse-trading with
slaves, and seducing them 10 plunder for their
benefit 49,
Comment. Mr.. President, is needless
William Gregg, in an address delivered be-
fore this same South Carolina Institute, IN
1851, said: " put down the white people
who ought to work, aud who do not, or are
so employed as to be wholly unproducdye, at
one hundred and twenty Eve thousand
large portion Of our poor white population
are wholly neglected, and are suffered 10
while away an existence in a state but one
stem in advancesbf the Ind an OF. the forest.
MANY a one is reared in proud
South Carolina, from birth to manhood, who
has never passed month in which he has
not been stinted for meat.
These may be startling statements out they
are nevertheless true.
When Baron DeKalb,ma General Francis
Marion, during the Revolution. he expressed
amazement that so many South Carolnians
were running to take British projections
Marion replied =" The people Of Carolina
form two classes-the rich and the poor. The
poor are very poor the rca, who have slaves
to do all their work, give them no employ
ment. Unsupported by the rich. they coqtin-
ue 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 1t;
therefore. they care nothing about it. The
rich are generally very rich afraid to stir lest
the British should burn their houses and car
ry off their negroes. ss
After the war; he estimated that " poor
Carolina lost through her ignorance $l5,000,-
600 (; for ignorance begat toryism, and toryism
begst 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 know
ledge; nor knowledge without instruction;
nor public instruction without free schools
nor free schools without Legislative order.
South Caroline 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 gannered up from all the
eloquent utterances of the statesmen and or
ators she has sent into the councils of the
republic.
Mr.. Olmstead, in his work on the "Seaa
Board Slave States, speaking of the educated
Caroinians-that other class which, according
to the honorable Senator from South Carroll.
ma, leads " progress, civilization, and refine
ment' says that I" they habitually make
great claims" to culture. q But i must OBJ
serve, also, that have been astonished at the
profound ignorance and unmitigated stupidi-
ty have found in some planters owning
large numbers of slaves
Assouthern- gentleman, who had re-
sided in South Carolina, and who had.travel.
led in Spanish America, said TO Mr.. Ohm
stead, speaking of the Spanish and Hispano-
Indian races, that he had g seen, among the
worst of them, none so entirely debased, so
wanting in all energy, industry, purpose of
lie, and in everything to be respected, as
among extensive communities on the banks
of the Congsree, in South Carolina"
- They are more ignorant, their superstitions
are more degrading, they are much essdn-
dustrious, far less cheerful aud animated,
NNAA
aud elevated, than the most degraded poems
OF Mexico. Their chief sustenance is por-
ridge Of cow peas, and the greatest luxury
with which they are acquainted is stew Of
bacon and peas, with red pepper, which they
call g hopping john. sf
Speaking of. the sand-hilers, Mr.. Ohm
stead says that 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 chiet diet is rice and
milk. They are small, gaunt, and cadaver-
Gus, and their skin is just the color Of the
sand hills they live on. They are quite in
capable of applying themselves to any labor,
and their habits are very much like those of
the old Indians
A northern gentleman, who had spent a
year in South Carolina. said to Mr.. Olmstead,
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 Y ork."
Speaking in favor of manufacturers. the
Hon.J. ii. Lumpkin of Georgia, in 1852,
said: g am by no means ready to concede,
that our poor, degraded, hah-fed. half-clothed
and ignorant population, without Sabbath
schools, or any other Kind of instruction,
mental or moral, or without any just appre-
citation of character, will be injured by giving
them employment in manufacturing estab-
lishmeuts."
Mr.. Olmstead says sit is evident that a
large part of the people of Georgia still have
the yagrant and hopeless habits of Oglethorp's
first colonists, somewhat fayorably modified,
it is true, by the physical circumstances which
haya mazda than aunerior 70 hontuto
or legal crime, and also, perhaps, by the in
fuence of freely preached, though exceed.
ingly degraded form of Christianity. They
are all coarse and irrestranable in appetite
and temper with perverted, eccentric, and
incorporate spiritual impulses, faithless in
the value OF their own labor. and almost i'm
beetle for personal elevation"
Mr.. Taryer of Missouri, in work on stDo-
nestle Manufacturers in the South and
West" says: IL have observed Of late years,
that an evident deterioration is taking place
in this part of the population, the younger
portion OF il being less educated, less indus
trious, and in every point Of view less respec-
table than their ancestors.
Mr.. Helper, of North Carolina, says -
Poverty, ignorance, and superstition are the
three leading characteristics of.the non-slave-
holding whites Of the South"
The reports Of ecclesiastical bodies in the
South, of missionary, Bible, tract. educa-
tional, and other societies, and the statements
OF colporteurs, and other persons interested
in the intellectual and moral culture of the
people, furnish the fullest and amplest svi.
Deuce 70 sustain the declarations have made
concerning the poor whites OF the slavehoid-
ing states. Upon them the evils of slavery
press with merciless force. trust the day is
not far distant when they will inaugurate a
policy that shall at least enancipate them
selves aud their posterity from thraldom
hardly less enduTable than the bondage Of the