, 1875-10-27

SA l pc Ou LnO
suooulent beauties of the " aftermath" or the
verdant richness of the green-orops, but for
simple righteousness outside and distinct from
the saoerdotal order of thought, we are inclined
10 tnlnk Mr.. DaVls's speech at the Fair of the
Jefferson County Agricultural Society q few
weeks ago a. most creditable performance.
The Ex-Pfesldent of the Oonfederacy extolled
agriculture as we might expect a proprietor to
do whose ground has been titled by men and
women whose labour he owned. The hard and
ugly side OF farming never was impressed on
the slaveOwner and since Slavery fell Mr..
Davis has been too closely wrapped in vision.
airy grandeurs to spare any attention for %he
realities of the new social conditions under
which he is compelled to live. He continues
to see only the bright side Of feld.labour,
which is as like the truth as the shepherds of
Guarini and Vatican are like the real peasants
who tend the fooks of Lombardy or the Landes.
The slaves whom Mr.. Davis laboured to keep
in subsection for the good of their moral and
intellectual natures will appreciate his assur-
anoe that agriculture, " as it was the first, is
the highest occupation of man." "The
last of creation was the agricultural man,
as the best was woman, who was to be a help
mate for the agricultural man." But q more
permanent and larger interest attaches to
the few words which, in the midst of his
Georges, the Ex-President of the Confedera.
cy permitted himself to drop. The Chief of
she Secession, the bitter enemy of the Free-soil
principles, which, if they are rooted anywhere.
are rooted 10 the great oorn-producing States of
the West, o0nteRSes or boasts for we are not
quite sure how his rhetoric is to be taken-that
"Whatever the views of policy and the designs of
stateoratt might desire to in re.
gard to the future, the people of the great
Mlsslsslppl valley are one, and must always
remain one people, in interest. in destiny, and
IN social forces aud material progress. No
man, no course of policy, no deep designs of
ambitious men could ever discover them in
ali the future they would stand together"
This is either an admission that the ends for
which the South. spent its life-blood so freely
nave been finally defeated, or that the move.
lnent OF the West towards the Democratic
party Will accomplish those ends, certainly,
though Indirectly. If the latter Interpretation
% true to the meaning of the speakeG he was
wise to study ambiguity in his language, for
nothing could be more ruinOuS to the cause
with which Mr.. Davis may DO presumed to be
in alliance, than to have it suspected that its
victory would bring back the Dominance, now.
ever disguised or mitigated, of the Slave
Power.
1t is hardly possible even for an English.
man to read with patience the u%nctuous com.
mon-places of Mr.. Jefferson Davis's. after-din-
ner pastorals. To Americans, whether North.
ern or Southern, who really felt the iron of
the Civil War enter into their souls, the COM
~placency of the speaker must be almost mad.
dening. The Yankee %satirist whose sarcasm
is so thoroughly molten with feeling wrote,
when the long struggle of the Civil war was
drawing to its close -
.........."I' rather stand
For judgment where your meanest slave is,
Than at Gods bar hold up a hand
AS dripping red as yourn, jeff Davis"
But this exterior perception of the burden of
failure does not correspond to Mr.. DIvis's
internal feelings. 1t is true he led fiery
people to war; he marched them through
trials not often paralleIed in the history of
peoples that fought without oOmpuIsion, and he
saw them decimated, beaten back, starved out,
fainting under repeated blows, an at length
PROSTATE at the feet of their enemy. He saw
everything that had been staked on the battle
swept away, and he saw himself accused by
the %stoutest champions of the lost cause as
responsible for the disaster. Yet Mr.. Davis
never seems to have faltered in his faith
in bis own infallibility. He never reproaohed
himself for tempting his felIow-countrymen
to a hopeless enterprise, he never took defeat
to heart as even the gallant Lee did. He
"came up smiling" in the jargon Of the
Prize-ring, but it was with assured conf
dence in his own luck, and with profound in
difference to the thoughts as we'll as to the
fate of all the rest of the world. This has