The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-11-29
boys-two just from college and one un-
dergraduate home for the vacation.

Inc disease OF social CrOuOlc was not
there, because the predisposing causes
were not there. Our land is not filled
with money rings, stock jobbers, and
huge monopolies and accumulation of
capital to grind labor into dust and drive
the working man to desperation, where
he has to be slaughtered in the name of
order. Whilst denouncing the spirit of
lawlessness, therefore, it is also well to
denounce those by whom offenses come.
Set your faces against these, too, my
friends, and let them find no favor with
you at the ballot box. Whilst it is kept
pure and is controlled by conservative
influences, we are safe. The stronghold
of conservatism and of law is in the
homes of those who till the soil and live
upon the fields. "Firm as the everlast-
ing hills" says the proverb, and the in
habitant of these hills or plains acquires
something of the stability of his home
stead. In the very nature of his occupa-
ton, the man of the fields is also man
of stability and peace. To him we look
for resistance to new and untried things,
for the preservation of old landmarks.
When riot deluges the city in blood or
wraps its palaces in fame, when strikes
stop the wheels of the factories, paralyze
the arm of law and invite crime to come
forth to his carnival, and artful dema-
gogues stir the fires of discord for selfish
ends, then indeed do the eyes of all pa
triots turn toward the hills whence COM
eth our strength then indeed do we look
to the men of the fields to come up full
Of the teachings of their fathers and fresh
from the purity of their firesides and their
communings with nature to overcome the
promptings of evil and misguided men,
to restore the strength of the law, and
maintain the freedom and justice of So
ciety. No men on our continent have
been better taught the great lessons of
true civilization and constitutional liber-
ty, for no men have sat at the feet of
greater statesmen and purer patriots than
the people of these Southern Atlantic
States. Of all men, they perhaps best
know that all the wealth we can amass
and all the natural progress our vast re-
sources may enable US to make are as a
sounding of brass or the tinkling of a
cymbal-are worse than vanity, except
the genuine principles of freedom and of
law are still dominant in our hearts.
Except these abide in the ship, verify ye
cannot be saved.
Knowing these things, and removed,
as you are in a great measure, from the
temptation to do wrong which surrounds
the densely populated and manufactur-
ing districts of the land, Idoubt not but
you will remain true to your destiny, and
by your strong conservative tendencies
keep the ship for many ages from drift
ing upon the rocks, and preserve for our
children the blessings of free and stable
government.
To stimulate you to the performance
of these high functions, and to ask you to
contemplate with jealous pride the grand
position you really hold in the economy
of our American politics, is my task to-
day. I can learn you little in regard to
the science of agriculture proper. can
not tell you how to grow more cotton
with the same or less means, and would
not if l could. You grow too much as it
is. The more of it you produce the more
dependent you become on Western meat
and bread. If had my way I would
have every man who called himself
farmer, and yet bought all his meat and
bread in Cincinnati or st. Louis, indicted
for obtaining good name under false
pretenses. Cotton is not king; by dire
necessity, in time of war, We learned that
food was. You have tried so long to en-
throne cotton that it is time you were
finding out that your royal parsonage
like many such in Europe, was an expen-
sive institution-hardly worth the trap
pings which adorn him.
But there is class of our popul alton
whose chief occupation is the production
of cotton, whose welfare should engage
more of your attention now than the pro-
duct of their labor. But lately your
slaves, and poorly fitted for the duties of
citizenship, the problem of their future
position is among the most difficult which
we have to solve. In my opinion the
proper solution depends also upon the ag-
ricultural people of the South. 1t is for
you to determine whether they shall or
shall not become active and efficient fac.
tors in the preservation of free govern
ment and the promotion of our material
prosperity. Important factors of some
sort they undoubtedly are and will be; if
left to the teachings and influences OF
those whose opinions we regard as detri-
mental to our ideas of government, they
will become to US evil factors in any case.
If brought within our own influence then
they will become factors for good or evil
as our opinions may prove right or wrong.
For one, I think we have too long per-
mitted aliens in feeling and interest to
control these black people at our doors.
For one, I am willing for the sake ofput-
ting them, as part of our own people,
under the control of our opinions, to do
anything consistent with the preservation
of the purity of our blood and of those
social distinctions which our Anglo-sa2on
prejudices in support of nature have es-
tablishcd.
don't want 100000 of uneducased
half-civilized enemies, seated in the very
bosom of our Southern homes, controlled
by enemies still more hostile thousand
miles away. I do want these 100000,
however, to be our friends, to aid us to
till our fields, to think as we think, to
feel that their interest is our interest and
ours is theirs, to sustain the law in the
maintenance of life, liberty and prosperi-
ty, aud by natural alliance with the
land give strength to the conservative
element of our society. Without sacri-
fcing particle of what We owe to our
own race all this can be done, by attach
ing them to the soil, by aiding them to
procure good homes, by warning them
continually against the corruption which
lies in wait to entrap their suffrage,
showing them how evil rulers oppress
both black and white, and in all ways
manifesting a kindly interest in their
welfare. Verify, if we are wise, we will
make our political enemies repent that
they made the black men citizens.
Such, my friends, are the duties which
press upon the rural populations of these
States. To check aud hold steady the
rash tendencies of our Democracy; to