The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-11-11
Tho Present and Future OF the South
Tho Examples OF History.

The Present and Future OF the South
The Examples OF History.
There are those in the South, it is
said, who indulge the gloomy appre-
hension that their section has been
brought, by the events of the war, to
the close of its career, and that the
world, so far as they are concerned,
has come to an end. The result of
the late national election will inten-
sify this conviction among persons of
Responding temperament. Such q
sentiment, as far as it has been pro-
duced by the war, is natural under
the circumstance which, however,
most nations of the earth have had
to encounter at some period or other,
but which have visited the South for
the first time. Other conquered races
have had the same sad imagination.
No doubt the Saxons concluded they
had no future, when, 800 years ago,
the brave Harold lost his life, and the
Normans became masters of all Eng
land. For four succeeding genera
tions, England was ruled by French
men; the Offices were filed by French;
the speech of the court was French;
IL was regarded as a degradation for
Norman prince to marry Saxon
princess; even the Saxon abbots and
prelates were violently. deposed, and
when q Norman gentleman wished to
deny o derogatory charge in the most
forcible form, he Indignantly asked,
"Do you take me for an English
man?" And yet the time came when
to be an Englishman was the proud
est boast of the descendants of the
men who had uttered that scornful
taunt. Atthe period when the two
races, SO long hostile, united in sup
port of the great charter, the history
of the English nation is truly said to
have begun. The Saxon race, in
stead of being extinguished, has, in
fact, given the dominating element
to the character, opinions, customs
and laws of England, laid the foun-
dations of an empire on whose pos
sessions the sun never sets, and of a
language and literature which will
live as long as the sun shines, and be
the heritage not only of England,
but Of two hundred millions Of peo-
Atalater period in English history,
when Charles / was sent to the block,
the cavalier party thought, no doubt,
that its fortunes had gone down be-
yound the hope of resurrection,
and therefore that the world had
come to an end. That party might
we'll have been gloomy and almost
despairing, not only in view of it's
disastrous overthrow, but of that
master spirit of the earth by whom
its defeat had been accomplished,
and of the steady, disciplined, solid
squadrons whom he had trained to
victory. After the fashion of all man
kind, (when their cause is lost the
cavaliers thought that the country
and all creation had gone with it. In
stead OF that proving true, England
became greater under Cromwell than
she had ever been before, and having
fulfilled his mission, not only did the
world and the country refuse to be
ruined, but even the cavalier party
cameanto power again, and their rep
resentatives still lead the councils
and the camps of Great Britain. Rim
Van Winkle, after his twenty years'
nap on the Cattskill mountains. was
not half so much astonished as a. de-
spairing cavalier of Charles time
would be, il he could rise from the
dead and see what the little nation,
not then containing five millions of
people, whose whole annual revenue
OF the crown was about G1, 400, 600,
has been doing since in every depart
ment of human progress. AS he
looked upon all this, and cast glance
at the colossal Eastern Indian en-
pire, (which has come into existence
since his time,) he might nationally
conclude that England never fairly
began her race of material progress
ill after inc time when, In the opin-
ION OF many, it seemed to have ended.