The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1861-11-29
john g Forney ON tho Attitude OF
South Carolina.

the dispatches Of Commodore Dupont and
Brigadier General Sherman, and particu-
larly by the splendid proclamation of the
latter to the people of the almust conquered
State of South Carolina! Apart from
the success Of this great expedition, certain
political considerations become unavoidably
prominent. Gen. Sherman, with states
manlike skill draws the line between the
paramount power of the Federal Govern
ment and the perverted doctrine of State
rights, which, advocated by Calhoun, has
produced most of the evils under which the
Southern people are now grooming. He di.
rectly offers premium for loyalty, extend
ing the warmest encouragement to all who
feel disposed to acknowledge the authority
of the Federal Union ; and asserting that
it is not the purpose of the army under his
command to wage war of snbjugation, he
nevertheless gives disafected parties, and
espe ciaily the traitor leaders of the South
distinctly to understand that if they con.
tinue to provoke the indignation of the ma
tion they have assailed, they will have no.
body to censure but themselves if they are
vigorously chastised for it.
South Carolina has been the headquar-
tiers, not merely of the Disunion element,
but of a social aristocracy which subsists
entirely upon the proceeds of slave labor,
and Boosting of certain high ancestral asso-
Citations, has assumed to look down upon the
people of the free States as its interiors.
| Senator Hammond was type of this class
and he never spoke their sentiments more
truly than when he called the people of the
North and the Northwest " mudsills," re.
mark which you will recollect, elected from
the lamented BrOderick memorable re-
buke The South Carolina gentry-the
Prestons, the Aikens, the Mannings, the
Hammonds, the Butlers-have always con-
sidered themselves, not only better class
| than the rich and we'll born of the free
States, but have maintained toward their
associates in the South supercilious and
naughty department. They always regard
ed the Federal Government with undissem-
bled contempt, holding up South Carolina
as a sort of emperium inaperio--a world
within itself, sort of Arcadia controlled
by few men, and utterly distinct from all
relations, except what commerce rendered
necessary, with the outside barbarians
There has been, SO to speak, no middle class
in South Carolina. So completely had
these leaders obtained possession of the
public confidence and the public judg-
ment, that the whole policy of the State
was confded to them. Instead OF
voting for President, like their fellow
citizens elsewhere, the Legislature chose the
Presidential electors. Such thing as a
contest for Congressional nomination was
rare. Men sat in Congress as the British
noblemen sit in the House of Lords, by a
prescriptive and Divine right; and as TO the
Senate, the idea of an enterprising mechan.
ic, Or progressive business man, or law
yer who had worked his way up from OBJ
security, attempting to aspire to 1t, would
have given rise to a revolution. These aris-
tocrats had so much contempt for the forms
that regulated parties, and were so constant
ly ambitious Of being considered the beau
ideal of statesmen and of scholars, that,
while protesting to be the Democratic par
ty, they delighted in ridiculipg it, and while
generally voting for Democratic Presidents,
they declined, for many years, sending dele
gates to the Democratic National Conven-
tions. They lived life of luxury and
ease. Scoring the spirit of enterprise that
always animated the neighboriug State OF
Georgia, they preferred that Charleston
and Columbia, and other large towns, should
rather decay for want of a proper public
spirit than to advance and prosper under
the progressive idea, which was in their
eyes only another evidence OF Northern val
garity.
What CONSERVATION General Sherman 8
proclamation must excite among these men
Their alarm and indignation can only be
compared to the surprise and horror OF the
old French nobility when Napoleon, with
bis strong hand, broke up their aristocratic
privileges and drove them from the Fau-
bourg st. Antoine. The fates have decreed
that, ualess they submit to the Federal au.
thority they have despised, they will not
only lose their aristocratic privileges, but
the vast incomes upon which they have
heretofore subsisted without toiling or spin
ning-because, according to the policy
enunciated by General Sherman, these gen.
tlemen will not be permitted to flourish
upon the proceeds of the slaves, and at the
same time, to maintain an armed opposition
to the constitutional authority of the United
States.