Newbern weekly progress., 1862-10-25
.luEIGlaTHNa uxloNIsnH.

4 b ~. VI. y i'll
exception to this rule. Ii free gov.
eminent aEd,4ibeFa institutions, with
the manifold blessings that attend
fthesa are worth anything at all, they
are certainly worth fighting for
The great non-slavebclding masses
Of the South, who are, in every State,
"a vast majority Of the citizens thereof,
have hitherto been kept down and
bound hand and foot, Ike a blind
giant, ~ the negro-driving aristocratic
minority. The whole number of slave
holders in the entire South, isless than
half a million. Vet there are millions
Of white men in the South, who own
no slaves at all, bdt who are them
selves,orhave been heretofore,thc most
abject and degraded serts.. They are
'AApied political equality by the landed
qualification, j, which limit eligibility
70 official position to q comparatively
small number of persons. They see
their children deprived Of tho sacred
right, to education, which the State
owesto every child within its borders.
They know-at least all the thinking
men among them ; and most men think
more or fess-tliat they are looked
upon by their negro-holding masters,
as 80 much white trash 80 much
floating capital" tor hungry dema-
gogues to invest in. They know, fur
themorc, or rorght to know, that they
are kept in Ignorance and degradation,
and that the same doom is destined
for their children and their children's
children, because the lords Of the soil
are assured that, otherwise--if educat.
ed and brought up to standard OF
intelligence such as TO enable them to
understand their innate equal rights
with other white men=-they would
rise up in peaceable and law-abiding
insufrection at the ballot-box, and
assert their dormant and intrinsic
power, and break down the despotism
that enthralls them.
The reason why the poor white man
of the South is not allowed to he edu-
Gated, and is kept chained down in the
dungeon of ignorance, is the same,
precisely, for which the negro is.
Everybody khcws, a,td ell "eonscrva
tise "-men everywhere admit, that it
would newer do to educate the negro.
We all agree at once that the safety
and pcrmancncy of slavery would be
endangered, if the blacks were afford.
ed the opportunity of education. They
would inevitably become discontented,
and would eventually rise mp in mutt
ny. 1t is, therefore, universally ad-
nritted that their ignorance and degra-
dation, mental and moral, is neces-
sary condition to the conservatism of
Southern social institutions upon the
present basis.
Bit the "poor white trash" is an
other prop Of the system. 1t Is i'm
mensely in the majority of votes. 1t
wohld never do to give it the Glance of
effectively exercising the power it pos
sesses, through its vast numerical su-
pcriority, Of overturning and revolu'
tionizing the institutions of the COM
monwealth. Free labor being the in
terest, everywhere on the globe, of the
great masses of the people-and there
are, always, in every community, more
poor men than rich-the perinanency
of an aristocracy, and the hereditary
enjoyment of its peculiar privileges,
depends altogether upon monopoly
of intelligence and education. kNowL-
EDGE IS Power and itmast be seques-
tered by the aristocracy, or the demo
cracy will triumph.
This war, however, in the good
Providence Of God, has opened up the
pathway of deliverance from his bond
age to the poor white man OF the South.
His liberation-not that specially Of
the negro, which is only secondary and
incidental-his enfanchisement, and
admission to an equality Of rights with
other men of the Caucasian stock, cit
izens of Northern States, is the great
and manifest destiny which the revo-
luton now in progress has developed
and made plain.
Is not this destiny something worth
fighting for! Is not participation,
on the part of, the poo, degraded, igno.
rant white man Of the South, in those glo-
rious Northern riqhts which SO many