The Nashville daily union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1866, 1863-09-26
War of the southern Planters
Against the YeOmanry.

War of the southern Planters
Against the Yeomanry.
The distinguished DIR. Francis Lieber,
for many years Professor in Columbia
College, s., @. in late letter to the n. Y.
Post on the effect of Slavery upon the
social economy of people, says:
take it that all history establishes,
and Sll profound statesmen and publ
cists acknowledge, the following two
facts, namely:
A numerous and Independent yeoman-
ry-that is 70 say, large class of fairly
schooled, intelligent and respectable free
holders of moderate yet sufficient estate
spread over the country, with an hon
Orable share in its government, oonGti-
tutes one of the most important ele-
ments of permanent, healthful state of
a nation, and is ,0lolly indispensable to a
people 10hose type Of government is Ma1 Of
Substantial and orderly freedom.
Secondly, t0hsreUey permanent, large and
compact estates erist, t0hether 20; call them
aItifitndia or plantations, a yeomanry cannot
eDist By The side of Liem Huge estates al
ways tend to the buying out of the
small farmer and 10 reducing him to
poverty; for the interest of the money
he may obtain for his farm is insufficient
to support him and his family as his
farm did. Let = comfortable farmer of
seven hundred acres, well stocked too,
sell his estate, ana he is q poor man at
once.
M. - ~ .oo.,,t Al, d;,..,, a
truths. IL is now acknowledged that
Gracious did not desire 10 uproot Roman
society by his agrarian laws. He saw the
fearful fact before him, that the possess
ors of the latifladia were charging their
possessions more and more, were buying
out the independent Roman farmer, once
the very substance of the state, but who,
Ousted by the senatorial land holder,
went 10 the city, there TO swell the worth
less, idle and clamorous population which
played 30 calsmitous . part in later Ro-
man history, down to the breaking up of
the empire. Gracious saw that the lati-
f4ndia-holders were substituting more
and more slaves, imported from Greece
and Asia, for the free farmer, and, be-
cause thus substituting slaves, were
turning the fertile grain growing Italy
into a merely grazing country, since the
slave is unfit for minute and careful az
rioulture. Gracious showed this threats
ening and demoralizing state of things
presented the yeOman as the sinew Of a
manly country, and desired for the GUST
ed cultiyator nothing more than portion
of the public land which the big land
holders had arrogated 20 themselves, Of
ten by no other means than by fencing
and afterwards claiming il as their own.
l have seen the very same process of land
arrOgstion by boldly fencing il in, in
this country, though on a smaller scale
than il was carried on in Italy, where
the conquered always lost large por-
ton, at times the whole, of their land
la the southern portion Of our country
the increasing extent of plantations, the
ousting of the yeomAn, the pauperizing
and degradation Of the Ousted farmer, ii
he did not emigrate, has shown itself, as
in England aud ancient ltalyi with this
difference, that in the latter countries the
hnd-holders were connected with .
landed aristocracy, while with us the
far greater portion Of the owners Of
plantations are successful Adventures,
very frequently former overseers, or men
who have made q fortune as merchants,
tradospeople or lawyers. 80 feudAl law
promotes The land. deyouring tendency