Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1867-11-08

a otable set of vigorous and determined,
but narrow and prejudiced, thinkers is I'M
likely TO be carried out. We mean the
object of satnrating and controlling the
New South with New England ideas, ten
denotes and habits of thought. The ami
mus of such scheme may readily be traced
even in narrow limits. No educated ana
impartial observer will deny that the feel
ing of antaconism, not to say bitterness or
hatred. long prevalent in New England to-
ward the South, did not arise exclusively
from disaprroval of slavery. New Eng
land was trading, the South was agr1cultu-
raj. New England was, comparatively
speaking lnorose and ascetlc, while the
South, in like manner, was genial and sell
indulgent Theological, social, political,
and climatic distinctions were strongly
marked in each section and all partook OF
the same antithetical character. Acrimo-
NOUS disputes about slavery sharpened the
edge of these differences, but did not Gre
ate them. In the absence of slavery such
differences would have existed, having a
! legitimate soulc e in contrareltles OF origin,
climate and ayocation. In the absence Of
slavery such difference will continue to
exist, notvith landing d large TRANSMISSION
of Northern blood, in obedience to natural
laws which all the prejudice or fanat1clsm
in the world cannot permanently check or
obliterate. These laws operated IN broad,
coarse way when they made red-hot, I'M
compromising, slavebolding Southerners,
| in all inconceivably short space, OF calcu-
! lating anti-slavery Yankees who went
South in the days gone by. The effect was
more subtle and genuine when working
slowly on large masses. Two potent eau
ses of that effect exist now as they existed
then, and no uniformity as regards either
domestic seryitude or religion can remove
them. These two sources of individuality
and divergence are of course, climate and
VOCATION Nothing can keep two bodies of
men alike, either physically or otherwise,
although coming from the same stock,
when one lives in Carolina, the other in
Massachusetts, nothing can perpetuate
common characteristics IN the two cOmmu-
mites when one lives 10y raising cotton and
rice on the profits of agriculture, the other
by buying and selling Oh the profits of
trade. The distinction is SO generally un-
derstood as scarcely to require elucldatlon
Our sole object at present Is to urge that
the abolition Of slavery does not remove it,
The traders Of New England long re-
scented the attribution Of social superiority
over themselves to the Southern planters
!. resentment which, as usual, was height
ened by an uneasy consciousness that the
superiority in fact existed, since it is GER
tain that, other things being equal, no
purely trading community, i'll point of
breeding, culture, and whatever goes to
make up social cmincnce andErc1inement,
ever equals a purely agricultural one. Tx
ceptlOns there may be; but the general law
Is donlon8trable, being based upon simple,
definite and irrefutable principle. 1t was,
however, the hope OF the New England
traders, indeed OF the whole body of OK
tremlsts and dOct1'iNui3eS, their congeuers,
to circumvent this law and to attain their
favorito end of making everybody exactly
alike, North and South, black and white.
They proposed to New Englandlze" the
recalcitrant States. This was to be done,
after the inevitable abolition of slavery, by
pouring into the South large emigration
from their own section. 1t was, however,
perceived that the climate and the pursuits
of those who live in it would necessarily
continue to ne what they were before. =
Hence complete social revolution was
contemplated, which, by putting the lately
seryile race literally over the heads of their
former masters, would entirely destroy the
prestige or superiority those masters had
once possessed aud which had been SO gen
orally acknowledged. We are regarding
the question for the moment i'll its social
as apart from its political aspect: the main
1CAt1IIC "a Ill the IdGtCi
having been designed to accompany en-
forced social equality. But it will be easily
seen that both parts of the scheme must
by the failure OF either. come to the ground
together Nothing but negro suffrage i'm
posed by force upon the unwilling but help
less whites Of the South can ensure that
social degradation Of them which has been
SO ungenerously contemplated. Nothing
short of this can prevent that harmonious
order, that graduated adjustment of the
social scale, which in al agricultural com
munity like that of the South the causes
we have glanced at arc clrtain to produce.
But the late elections have indicated that
the American people at large are by no
means prepared to assent to II measure in
which party and prejudice have so much
greater an interest than patriotism and
Justice. II negro suffrage is not to be
forced upon the South the process referred
to cannot conveniently be carried into
effect
The whole theory of Interference, the
theory Of making people drink alike, cat
alike, dress alike, move alike, think alike,
practice obligatory uniformity in a word, in
all conceivable respects, the Puritan notion
OF compelling peopls to do what we choose
to think right and not what they choose to
think right, has received in these elections
Il SlSual feOukc, anu one which 1T was not
premature to administer. The passion for
carrying all things to extremes, for apply
ing the untenable aud preposterous dogma
of universal equality in every impoIitic and
silly direction, seems to have had it's swing,
and the common sense of tho people to
have recOlled just this side of destruction
A warming has at least been given which,
from the nature Of our situation, is likely
to prove quite as effectual as the strong
arm. What we require in this country is
not uniformity, but variety not legislation
to repress individuality, but absence of le-
8lslatlon to encourage it; not protection
bringing impoverishment, but free trade
bringing prosperity not canting provin-
Gals thinking their own little corner the
centre Of the world and themselves the
wlsest who live in it, but generous-hearted,
clear-headed patriots who think of the in
terest Of the whole country, who know the
meaning of the golden rule and who strive
to act up to it not ignorant and degraded
voters who bring baskets and tin pots in
which to carry away their fright - of suf-
trage, but Intelligent and fairly educated
citizens with sense enough to know and