The Orangeburg news. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1867-1875, 1870-01-01
1870,
Eheu9 .fugaccs aabuntur ami!

w Sup iVr HomeuG from lho ulEHy
fight of events in which our thoughts
and habits become imperceptibly mixed
acquiring the rapidity and hurry of their
evolution. Times change and we change
with them, and change as rapidly as
they do. The Christmas-tide and the
close of the year suggest retrospection.
The associations of the season carry each
heart back in reyerie to the long ago
In the bright yule-fre, we can recall,
and see again the fancied castles, the
forms, the faces, that we used to see SO
distinctly in the Goals in childhood
Never mind what has happened since,
we were happy then. Have those bright
scenes, moulded in fancy among tho fire.
Goals, become realities now in life Does
that beautiful countenance, seen then in
boyhood, bend over you now in manhood,
and love aud cheer you.
Perhaps so, and 'tis sadder because
real. Perhaps bright eyes arc dim now,
end only angels footsteps linger now,
sent from spirit land, at this season,
wreathed with its associations and re
trospections, and only spirit forms are
reflected in the bright Goals. How hal
lowed the review of the past! Such
thoughts, are the moral value and beauty
of the season. But to go back to those
sunny times, how many events, how
many changes have we to leap! In each
individual life, how great the change
1870. How old the world is getting .
No wonder is it, that the rush of events
is SO dizzy, for rapidly with the gliding
years, all things are hurrying to their
denouemcnt.
Over the world, ideas arc evolving
themselves out of experiment and specu-
lation into the stubborn granite of fact.
War, with its perfect destruction, is
hurrying the settlement OF opposing in-
terests and issues. The conservative
past struggling with its entrenchments,
strengthened by age, and tho force of its
own inertia, is giving way to the splen-
did triumphs of progress. King-crait in
the old world, with its might and wealth,
is compelled day by day to strip itself of
Its superstitions aud attributes. The
logic of events points ua..4is.,t-.is,s
surely, to the day when the seal Of our
Virginia, will be the emblem of the last
grand triumph Of the freedom, and
equality Of men, and religious and civil
liberty, will have placed her foot upon
the systems and institutions, that incul-
cate and enforce the dogmas Of the 'di-
vine right of kings" and the unequal
rights of man.
But nowhere upon the earth have
more stupendous events taken place, nor
mightier change been accomplished
than in our own Southern country
Looking upon the rapid developments of
events, and realizing the swift gliding of
the years, can we be astonishcd at the
rush and the change?
Slavery, and landed aristocracy al
ready existed at the South, established
as we thought MOTTO be-removed, and
already, bulwarked with tradition, and
superstition. These are the bases upon
which. monarchies arc super-structed, and
upen which they rest. These elements,
antagonistic to freedom, existed at the
South, and their natural consequences
already were seen. Wealth, education,
refnemcnt, purity of social relations, vir-
tine, and even sense Of manhood, were
confined to certain class. Tley owned
the slaves and the land. Outside of
this class, there was another. In this
other class, there was squald degrade
ton, ignorance, want, and debased
sense of inferiority. In numbers, in de-
gradation, in the distance between them
and the wealthy class, there was con
slant and rapid increase. They were in
che majority in numbers; in every other
respect they were immeasurably inferior.
Any county in South Carolina, will
exhibit this to be the state of things cx-
isting before the war. The proof is
around us, the state Of affairs, startling.
Blow after blow had been hurled by
the North, at tie institution oe slavery,
tke cornerstone of our social fabric
An evil in itself, and the contagious dis