The national Republican., 1860-12-07
POPULAR GOVERNMENT TO BE SUP
PRESSED.

a correspondent Oh the baltimore american,
writing from the capital Of South Carolina.
under date Of the Sd instant in respect to tn,
military forces being raised in that State, says:
"How are the commanding officers to be ap
pointed? who is to appoint them? are the grea'
questions.
There are two parties in the House Of Rep
resentatives brought into contention upon this
subject, and during the past week their con-
hict has been most determined and bitter. The
one party is jealous of power. 1t mistrusts the
proposition to repose sovereign power in the
Executive in the matter Of levying war and
the selection of commanders of the troops to
be raised. The other and, to all appearances,
the dominant party, have, through their leaders,
declared all confidence in the next Executive
to be chosen, whoever he may be. They re.
gard the future Governors of the State in the
light of sorereigns. They have already in.
creased his power, as they have increased his
salary. No later than Saturday, gentleman
publicly declared, on the floor of the House of
Representatives, that he regarded the Govern.
or ;of South Carolina, at this juncture, as a
military dictator. He warmly advocated the
further increase of power. Indeed, among all
the educated men with whom have conversed,
the conviction already seems to be gaining
strong ground, that the masses are incapable o T
se!tgorernment. The indispositon to intrust
them with powers to choose their own military
leaders in this crisis, is an evidence. The
Legislature is strongly tinctured with this sen.
timent and hence the advocacy Of all meas.
ures to strengthen the powers of the Executive!'
The debates upon military bills evidence great
mistrust in the purity or Judgment Of the
masses
The Government Of South Carolina, even
while it has remained in the Union, has been
oligarchical. By imposing a property qualif.
cation upon the right of suffrage, and still more
effectually by rotten. borough apportionment
of Legislative representation which secures the
control to the heavy slaveholding parishes, the
oligarchs have held an undisputed ascendency
in the Legislature, as against the people. AT
the same time and as a part of the same sys.
TEN, the oligarchs have given to the Legislature,
thus in their hands, the choice Of Governors
and Presidential electors. Thus, South Caro-
lima, said by courtesy to have republican
form of government, has never been anything
but Republic after the pattern of Venice with
its Council of Ten.
These olgarchical features of government
grow out of the enormous disparities in the SO
cial position of the people of South Carolina
On the one side are the few, possessing great
wealth and highly cultivated, and on the Other
side the masses, who are, as we have the au
thority of Governor Hammond for saying, little
if at all, elevated above the condition Of the
native Indians of America.
1t is safe to presume, that if South Carolina
go,s out of the Union, her oligarchcal tenden
cies, checked hitherto by the general senti
ments of the country, will go on to their full
development, and that we shall have there, as
we now see in Cuba, where social disparitics
are not so great a titled noJlesse. Ten years
will not elapse, before we shall see South Car.
olina counts and marquises dancing and ogliug
at Newport and Saratoga.
In all these respects, there is a marked con
trast between the farming and planting States
of the South. There is nothing congenial be
tween republican Virginia and arstocratic soutl
Carolina, and if they could be made to act to
gether in a moment of excitement, they would
be separated at last by inherent and irremova
BILE elements of repulsion.