Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1858-05-27


statesmen of the south, of thei schools OF
Jackson and Clay, have been driven into re-
urement-they are ostracised, exiled, placed
under the ban of the empire. The venerable
and distinguished senators from Kentucky
(Mr. Crittenden) and Tennessee (Mr. Bell)
yet linger here to remind us of other days
and few liberal national men remain in the
other House; but these seats are now filled
by men who have accepted her creed, or who
silently bow to the imperious sway of her dis
eiples. The social and political ideas of the
fathers are prescribed, and the social and po.
litcal ideas reproduced by the senator from
South Carolina have attained a complete as
eendency.
We all remember-for who could forget
the assaults in 1856, of the southern dem
ocratic orators upon everything free IN Amer
lea. Slavery was pTonoupced ''the natural
and normal condition of the laboring man,
white or black T. 1.-The experience Of uni
versal liberty was pronounced by the Rich
mond Enquirer a failure" and I" free society
insufFeraole - g Free society" was de-
nounced by democratic organ in Alabama,
90 conglomerRti zion Of greasy mechanics, fl
thy operatives, and small listed farmers -
And the South Side Democrat edited by
gentleman-now one of the public printers of
Congress, denounced as hateful free farms,
free labor, free society, fl ee will, free think
ing, free children, free schools they all be-
longed ito the same brood of damnable
isms -
Sir, these social and political ideas, now
reproduced by the senator from South Caro-
lima, go unrebuked in these halls by the sup
porters of this administration. No democratic
senator, no supporter of the policy of the
administration, has yet questioned the as
symptoms, or dissented from the views of the
senator. The supporters of the Lecompton
constitution, from Rhode Island, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, OHIO, Indiana, Iowa and
California, have not ventured to even dissent
from the doctrines avowed by the senator
from South Carolina-doctrines which would
not pass unrebuked on the banks of the.
Danube or the Vistula. l mean to examine
these assum ptions in the light of facts, | mean
to take issue with these unsupported declara
tons, and l mean to brand these wsnton in
suits TO the free laborng men of the country.
To listen, Mr.. President, to the words of
the senator from South Carolina, we should
suppose that the white men of the South
were all men of wealth and culture end re-
fnement- that they were all lords and mas
ters- that labor was all performed by bond
men-the I'm nd sills' OF society. We should
imagine that these white men ''were leading
progress, civilization, and refinement" We
should imagine that the sunny South was
the seat of power, the chosen abode OF com
meree, manufactures, and the mechanic arts
OF literature and the fine ars; OF schools and
libraries We should also imagine that the
free North was the home of ignorance, pow
erty, and vice, and organized anarchy.
Sir, the senator has placed the North and
tAwSouth, the free and the slave states, free
DOM and slavery, ''lace to face" | meet him
on that issue. make no assault make no
war upon the South. This contest, hich
now stirs the nation to its profoundest depths,
is no contest between the North and South.
1t is contest between the rights of man aud
the privileges of an aristocratic, oligarchic
class. ..
Mr.. President, the Senator points triumph
antly to eight hundred and fifty thousand
square miles of slave soil to the finest natural
soil and the most genial climate. We of the
North confess to lheextent of your territory,
your naturally fine soil, and genial climate
We make no claim to equality of extent, of
climate, or of soil When the foot of civilized
man first pressed the sods OF the New World,
your section abounded in soil so ch it seem
ed exhaustless ours was hard, cold, and
rugged. Freedom took the rugged soil and
that rugged soil yields abundance to the will
ling hands Of free labor. Slavery took the
sunny lands and the sunny cline of the South,
and now it has left the traces of its ruinous
power deeply fuFrowed on the face of your
sunay land. In 1912, before the foot of the
bondman has pressed the soil of Virginia, Sir
Thomas Dale. in speaking of that Common
wealth; said. "rake four OF the bent Kingdoms
OF Christendom, snd put them all together,
they may no way compare with this country,
either for commodities or goodness OF SOIL
At an earlier period. Lane, Governor of
Raleigh Colony. says of Virginia and CARROLL
ma, cit is the goodliest soil under the cope of
Heaven-the most pleasing territo.y in the
world
Says g Perfect Description OF Virginia"
published in London in. l649. New England
is to Virginia as Scotland IS to England.
There is much coldS frost, and snow their
land is barren; except herring be put into
the hole you set the corn in, it will not come
up"
Two hundred years have passed since those
words were penned, and we do not now 'put
herring in the hole we set the corn in," on
our barren soil, yet it comes up, Millions of
the acres of ''the goodiest soil under the cope
of Heaven in old Virginia, are now SO poor
that " herring put in the hole they set the
corn in would not bring it up.
Washington, in letter to Arthur Young,
in 1887, says, " Our lands, as | mentioned to
you, were originally very good !; but use and
abuse have made them quite otherwise"
James Madison tells us, in 1919, that much
of the rich soil of Virginin had been exhaust
ed. Governor Wise said OF the agriculture of
Virginia, in 1865 ;-"You all own plenty of
land; but it is poverty added to poverty, poor
land added to poor land and nothing added
to nothing makes nothing" "You
have the owners skinning the negroes, and
the negroes skinning the land, and you all
grow poor together. lou have relied alone
on the power of agriculture; and such agri.
culture Your sedge-patches outshiue the
sun; your inattentlon TO your only source of
wealth has scared the bosom of mother earth.
Instead of having to feed cattle on thousand
hills, you have to chase the stump. tailed steer
through the sedge patches to procure tough
beef steak"
Mr.. g. s. Sullivan, of Lincoln county,
North Carolina, says in the patent Office re-.
port for 1851 awe raise no stock of any
kind, except for home consumption, and not
half enough for that; for we have now worn
out our lands SO much that we do not grow
food enough to maintain them"
Mr.. N. b. Powell of Alabama, in the patent
Office report for the same year, says awe
are the most dependent people in the Union
relying mainly, as we do, upon our neigh.
bors of the West for nearly all our supplies"
The senator from Alabama CMr. Clay1 has
described, in sad accents, the desolation of
portions OF his own native State. In trayers-
ing his own native county Of Madison, the
senator says :-'sOne will discover numerous
farm houses, once the abodes OF industrious
and intelligent freemen, now occupied by