The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1861-12-07

In the southern third OF the State,
comprising the two tiers of counties
nearest to the coast, the negro popu-
lation foots up over two hundred thou
sand, while the whites of all kinds count
less than half Of that number. Leaving
out the City of Charleston, with its
thirty thousand free inhabitants, and the
gross number Of white in these ten popu-
lous slave districts will be reduced to
somewhere between sixty and seventy
thousand. OF these, about third are
of the class known as "poor whites -
that strange, cadaverous, shutting, mis-
cradle race Of mortals found in the Car
olinas, and in the Slave States west of
them. (The "poor whites" proper,
however, abound much more in the other
sections Of the Statc.) OF the remain
der, u half are small traders and persons
who live by selling liquor and other
things surreptitiously to the negroes,
and purchasing what they pilfcr--a class
thoroughly dcspised and hated by the
/ planters. The remaining dozen thousands
consist of the planters and their families,
the overscors- generally villainous and
disgusting fellows and the white loafers,
dependents, gamblers and hangers-on
who attach themselves to the obscene
skirts of slave society. Most Of the
plantations in this region are large-the
planters owning from one thousand to
twenty thousand acres ofland. Scattere d
here and there by the way side, however,
are small planters and tenants owning
from five negroes downward, and some
times only fraction of a negro. Not
unfrequently you see here, as well as
elsewhere, an African wretch whom fate
has made the solitary slave Of some poor,
ignorant and brutal owner, who spends
most of his time in hogging him or her,
as the case may be. Much of the land
here is swampy, sandy, and poor and
not one fourth Of it is under cultivation.
A good deal of it is worn out, and the
old mansions have fallen into dilapida-
ton, and the estates into decay.
These great coast planters are proud,
bold, dictatorial ambitious, liccn,ious,
lazy set of men; yet regard themselves
as altoge thcr the most important person
ages on the surface Of the earth. They
dcspise all sorts and conditions of men
but their own sort, and regard every
kind of worker as-what one Of these
insolent nabobs dubbed them-but
I" mudsills " Of society, of which they
are the crown and crest. All mankind,
beyond the limits of South Carolina, they
consider " outside barbarians." Then
establishment at the audicity Of the
" mudsill North attempting to curb
their will, can hardly be conceived; and
the only motive for it which they Can
imagine is, that the nation could not
exist for moment without them. Yet
these men not only gain their politica
and social power from their helots, but
they subsist entirely upon the proceeds
of slave labor. Take that away, anc
they would be powerlcss, poor, ant
utterly helpless. This small but power.
full and compact class of oligarch-plan.
ters it is which has led the way in the
troubles Of all Slavedom and the Union
Into the midst of such social organ
ism as this, and on the verge of this
very community, the North has now
thrown twenty thousand armed soldier:
Of democracy. Let the superclliou
cotton and rice rebels beware
NcD- York. Times.