New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-07-04
Developments of Intellect South and North.


The following interesting and eloquent extract
is from an Grafton of the Hon Mr.. Clingman, of
North Carolina delivered one or two years ago.
1t is worthy Of especial perusa now, if it only tends
to stimulate the energies of the South. We can
endorse his facts and his philosophy. He is right.
The South has always been the great cradle of
greatness. Mr. Clingman, we need not add, is one
of the ablest and strongest men Of our excellent
sister, the Old North State:
The climate of North Carolina as a whole is emf
nenty favorable. | know that different opinions
prevail in many quarters, and so much is said in
these davs of Northern e1er0Y and Southern indO-
leRce, that you will doubtless pardon few remarks
tending to dispel a singular delusion>. 1.maintain
then, that during nine-tenths of the existence of
man the globe, as historically known, the desti-
MES of the world have been controlled by nations
occupying territories having as warm climates as
as own According to the settled opinion
of the learned, when man was first created, he
was placed by Providence in such climate and
it would be singular indeed, it when he was COM
manded to multiply and replensh the earth, he
should have been placed by his Creator in an un-
favorable location. Egypt, where man seems first
to have attained high state Of civilization, and
India, had tropical climates.
The four great empires of antiquity were, in
their centers, subjected to ranges Of temperature
as high as ours. Babylon and Persepolis We're
nearer the equator than the most southern point of
North Carolina, while Nineveh was below its
northern limit, and the hearts Of the Assyrian and
Persian empires subjected to a warmer eli
mate than ours. And Greece and Rome, too, were
lands of the olive the vine and the fig tree, and
possessed temperatures as high as our own. What
people ever exhibited more spirit, energy and en-
terprise than the Greeks in their Persian and
| Asatc invasions? Where has the world seen such
an example of longsustained strength ana energy
as was manifested by the Romans when they held
| for so many centuries the best portions OF the
! known world, from Scotland down to the great
| African desert? After the decay and Fall of their
| empire there began under the Tropic of Cancer a
movement, headed by Mahomet, which swept over
the earth with the rapdity of flame of fire, sub
| jectng the principal parts of it to It's control A
high state of civilization was kept up for centuries
at Bagdad and Cordova the capitals of the prnci-
| pal branches of the Saracenc dominions. After
their decline, and the overthrow of the Greek EN-.
| pire of Gonstantnople, the period of Spanish as
cendancy began.
1t thus appears that it is only during the last
two or three centuries that the so-callad Northern
nations have had control Of the world. The extra
| ordinary popular error, which generally pre-
walls on this subject, is dus, doubtless mainly tc
the fact that to the minds of the majority of meE
the present is everything, and the past however
long it may have been, goes f0f nothlag; It, IL
part, too may accounted for by the WeknowI
circumstance that thu. old Rsman Empire, in the
period of its decay, vas ovesrun by bands OF bar
barians from the North But at that time tbs
strength of the Romans was gone, having beer
destroyed by tleir vices and the despotsms tt
which they had been subjected. In fact they hat
long ceased tG,he military people. or to 6eal
| arms, ana naE Deen accustomed 10 hlfe theSe OAR
barians to Getend them. That they should have
fallen prey to them is no more wonderful thar
that deorapid giant, after century Of vice ant
dissipation, should have been oyerpowered by
stripliug. There can be no doubt but that any ON
of the half dozen such armies as the Roman Re
pubic was able TO keep in the field at the SAM
tirle, would have been able to beat any horde o
barbariaRs that ever crossed the frozen Danub be.
l would rot dispaEage or undervalue the intel
lect. talent, energy, exhibited by the Northern ma
tons in our day. But Homer still stands the mon
arch of Poetry. All attempts to equalize other
l with him but serve to show their lamentable infer
i, oritv Demosthenes and Cicero are still the mode
4 to Which the student in oratory is pointed. Wh
It has exhibited more capacity for metaphysical sc
+ ence than Aristotle, or greater genius Tor mechal
is cal philosophy than Archimedes? Whose WorF
r of art surpass those of Phidias and Michael Al
e gelo? Who, as morasts have been superior
T. Socrates and St. Paul? What nayigators we'
G. more enterprising and daring than Christopher
e umbus and Vasco de Gamo? Who as Tarrior
statesmen and possessors of universal genius al
,e talent, rank above Julius Caesar and Napolet
lie Bonaparte? The catalogue might be indefinite
a. extended by references, both to Europe and t
es United States, but until these names are oversha
h. owed, it cannot be trr.thfully said that Northe
ct cline is necessary 10 develope the highest degr
Of OF human cour age talent, energy and intellect.