The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1861-09-03
EFFECTS OF THE WAR.

Before the present war, or at its Threshold
! it had been customary not only for the Yankees
to deride the resources of the South, but for the
Southern people themselves to distrust them. That
distrust on the part of our people was far more
general than is commonly known. 1t had been
beaten into by Yankee books; it had eat into US
by a long endurance of the insolence of Yankee
patronage; and it had become secret uneasiness
with the people Of the South, despite their proud
and vehement assertions of confidence in return
for the boasts and threats of Northern men, how
far they mi ght be able to cope with the enemies of
their independence That old distrust, educated
in us by so many insidious Influences has not
easily been removed.
In the early sessions of Congress at Montgomery
the Military Committee Of that body very
much puzzled to make out estimates of material
for an army. Several of the members of the
Committee calculated, with difficulty, that twenty
five or thirty thousand men might be raised. At
last, more hopeful and adventurous member an
nounced his estimate Of fifty thousand men; and
the telegraph, with patriotic strain the
opinion Of the Congressman, and a considerable
ly" expected that the Southern Confederacy
would be able to put army of fifty thousand
men in the field.
The estimates of few months ago are now only
ridiculous We have already from four to five
times fifty thousand men in the field We are
wagng one of the most extensive and imposing
wars in the world, not only with military success
but with an order and evenness in civil and
industrial life that is especially surprising.
Il is not on y in the military point of view that
the South has exhibited in the present its
greatest extent its greatest novelty Of
1t has shown material, social and moral resources
of the most striking character and quantity. Our
industry is not paralyzcd by military employments;
its quiet and regular aspects in the midst of war
are little less than astonishing The stranger in
Richmond, unintormed of the history of the last
few months and shutting his eyes only to the
single circumstance Of soldiers passing through
our streets, could never imagine, while observing
the thriving and regular trade of the city and its
great and ordinary intercourse of life, that war
vaster in its proportions than those which have
rocked the nations of Europe to their foundations
was being actively waged within a hundred miles
of this, the Capital Of the South Indeed, we
can scarcely realize the fact for ourselves. The
tumult, the disorder, the want, the clamor Of the
poor, the tossing and restlessness Of socety-all
these common diStresses Of civil war-where are
they in Richmond? They are not visible here.
They are not visible any where in the South.
Our crops garnered as of yore; industry
has grown instead of sinking under the pressure
of war; our great system of slave labor has shown
powers of aGaptiveness, for which no mind in the
South had given it credit before; the internal
economy OF our own society Is unlntcrrupted
manufactures growing up, and resources not
only abound, but daily increase to meet the ext
gencies of the wal, under the first demands Of the
necessities by which it was prophesied we should
utterly and irretrievably sink.
Where stands now the North, whose power
and wealth, and grandeur have been long
preached and exploited? The war has dispelled
what appeared visions of reality. The splendid
spectaclcs that have been constantly paraded
of the power Of the North-thcir numbers, their
great cities, their railroads, their schools, their
elemoSynary bounties their centres of trade"
their opuent living, their striking representations
of wealth in money, are all gone like the baseess
fabric Of dream. The bubble of fictitious
greatness that has SO long danced before the eyes
of the world is broken. "The Great North" no
longer exists. The ruins of beggared wealth, the
clamours of the poor, the mental and moral sub
servicncy Of whole people to an ugly and loath-
some deSpot, attest that her power and virtue have,
alike, disappeared under the test of those times
which try the strength and souls Of both men and
nations.-Richmomd Enquirer.