The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1861-12-07
SOUTH CAROLINA.

Horace Greeley thus closes an article In
the New York Independent, of Nov. 81, on
{. South Carolina Past and Present"
t'It is not too much to say that, had
there been no South Carolina, there would
malcontent and disturber for a genera
ton. How she ever came to adopt the Fed
eral Constitution would be hopeless pug
zle, if We did not bear in mind that her
modern dogma of the intrinsic rightness
and bene6cence of Slavery was unknown to
her citizens prior to the invention of the
Cotton Gin. Her Revolutionary patriots,
though few, were sterling and their influ-
ence, combined with that exerted by the
name of the yet living Washington, car
ried her safely through the struggle for
more perfect Union with less officially
than was experienced in Virginia, in New
York. or even in Massachusetts. Patrick,
father. of John G. Calhoun, is remembered
mainly as having opposed the Federal Con-
stltution with all the bitterness of misguid-
ed zeal: but the current of Revolutionary
patriotism was not then to be resisted.
For more than thirty years, or ever since
it became morally certain that the greatest
of her perverse statesmen could never be
chosen President of the whole Union,
South Carolina has been always at heart
and often in act disloyal. For time, the
Whites of her Mountain region. where, as
in Western Maryland, comparatively few
slaves are held, stood up and breasted the
current; but at length they became weary
of exclusion from Office at the hands of the
oligarchs of the more powerful country,
aud gave way. In 1928, public meetings
and official manifestoes threatened Disunion
unless the Tariff were adjusted more to her
mind. In 1833-though the Tariff had
meantime been rendered much less obiec-
tionable to her-she attempted to nullify,
by constitutional ordinance, an act of Con-
gress, and thus brought herself into direct
scollision with the Federal Government. The
frmness and energy of President Jackson
defeated their effort, and she subsidized into
comparative quiet until 1884, when her
whole soul was thrown into the conspiracy
which in due time accomplished the annex
alton of Texas. Had she been banked OF
her aim, she would probably have made
that defeat an excuse for new effort at dis
Numbering the Union, such as she did
make in 1850, because Of the admission OF
California as Free State, when she was
again baff1ed by the refusal of the other
Cotton States to embark with her in the
desperate venture. In 1856, she stood
ready to secede and resist bad Fremont
been chosen President. In 1869 she divi-
ded and broke up the Democratic party in
order to obtain pretext for rebellion in the
election of Lincoln. Having so far sue
ceeded, she dare not await the cooperation
even of her sister Slave States, but rushed
out of the Union, so far as she could do so.
calculating (too surely) that the other Cot
ton States could not tamely see her thus ex,
posed and imperiled for Slavery's sake, but
must rush to her assistance and rescue
Hence we are as we are. Should the hum
bling of her oligarchy and the liberation o.
her cultivators from a bitter bondage be
among the results of this conflict, few viii
hesitate to see in that issue fresh proc
that the crimes and cruelty of Man are made
to subserve the justice and benefcence Of
| God.