The Nashville daily union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1866, 1862-06-29
From ihe New York Herald
origin OF the Had Feeling ia the
south Against the North.


origin OF the Had Feeling ia the
South Against the North,
Il has puzzled many wise head to ac
count for the apparently deep and bitter
enmity of the Southern mind in general
against the people inhabiting the regions
north Of Mason and Dixon's line. The
bad feeling alluded TO dates back in its
origin to, the time Of the famous John
Randolph, Of Roanoke, as he delighted 10
be called. He was a man who. il not a
good lover, was certainly great hatUr-
extending his passion for hating almost
TO the whole race Of mankind, including
even friends as well as foes, If he can be
said TO have bad many, il any, of the
former, except his devoted Juba. Ram
dolph was a man of singular and extra
ordinary genius, exercising no little pow
err over the minds Of the men Of his age,
more, it is to be believed by the fear
which his great powers OF sarcasm and
repartee inspired than from any of those
great and commanding qualities Of heart
and mind which produce respect and ad-
miration. He was a man who, il not like
Shakspeare's Yorick, capable of getting
| a table in a roar, was possessed Of such
infinite powers of reproach and sarcasm
that he was well able TO inspire contempt
and excite ridicule against any section or
people whom he chose TO attack. Edu-
Gated as an aristocrat, proud Of his an
Cient and royal descent-claiming prin-
cess, no less than the celebrated Poca-
hontas, as one of his progenitors-he
looked down with infinite contemplation
all whom he considered his interiors in
birth and station, Born, as il were, a
feudal lord, accustomed from early life
to command and dictate, he could not
brook association with those whose claims
| to distinction rested upon the foundation
Of individual merit, and who, even if
| their fortunes were equal with his own.
| owed them TO individual or commercial
| talents rather than TO aristocratic birth
| and rank. All these his antecedents
made him-we may almost say natural
| ly--an enemy to Northern men; and he
possessed powers of wit, repruaoh and
bitter inyective capable of communicating
! his own feelings TO the classes and peo-
! pie among whom he associated, and in
whose eyes he was a being of superior
order. He it was who first set in motion
the practice Of inveighing against the
commercial North: in fact he despised US
as much as an English nobleman despises
the peasant that works upon his estate.
and as much as the French uoJlesse of the
ancient regime despsed the ignoble
! tradesman or merchant,
1t is said Of him that, having been
appointed chairman of the Committee of
! Ways and Means, through the influence
! of President Jefferson, the ignorance
which ne betrayed in that high position
! Of all financial and commercial subjects,
was such as, If not TO disgust all the
other members of the committee, at least
! TO disgust him with his fellow commits
teemcn. ogreat, indeed, was his vanity
and self-conceit that we may well i'm
agine that, by himself his own ignorance
was viewed as a superiority, aud their
superior knowledge and ability in every
| thing relating to finance and commerce
was looked upon by him as something
low, degrading and inferior. At all
| events, his connection with the business
! men Of the North had no tendency to
| beget in him an admiration for business
| or love for those whose pride and glory
! consisted in business talents. From the
| influence of such a man as Randolph il
is easy to conceive how his neighborhoOd
and even his State, was easily led to
suppose that vitupcration Of the North
was an essential constituent of patriot
| ism, and that a supreme contempt of the
greater portion of a great people consti-
| tuted absolute superiority.
This great but giraffe genius, having
| first sown the seeds, did not live long
/ enough TO witness the rapid growth of
the crop and its bancful harvest John
| G. Calhoun followed closely in the wake
which John Randolph had opened in the
masses Of the South. With a deliberate
purpose Of separation and secession, he
availed himself Of the most powerful
means of dividing a people, which I'M
| questionably are the industrious dissem-
ination of hatred by the indulgence OF
! incessant vituperation, elimination and
reproach. The tariff was at first the
great machine employed to give imagi-
nary substance TO the numerous griev-
ances which the South was represented
as suffering from the North, Mr.. Nc
! DGlIie, 9 violent man, and AIN unscrupu-
lous generalizer, joining hand in hand
with Mr. Calhoun, actually succeeded in
persuading the people that they were
robbed by the North of a whole bale of
cotton in every four bales by the nc
ton Of the tariff Thus the evil spirit
of malignant hatred began 10 spread
and take root, until IL became a matter
of faith among the leading men Of the
South that they were robbed, plundered,
abused and shamefully ill-treated by the
North. When once the mind of any
public is brought to such pitch, and
worked up by such decisions to jeal-
ousy and hatred, a people may be said
to be like a magazine Of powder, which
only wants the torch and the frebrand
to bp thrown into it TO produce a uniyer-
sal explosion.