The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1879-07-17

and often a good deal more industriously
than any of them.
Greater still would be the wonderment to
learn that many OF the southern Leaders"
Whose arrogance exercised the Northern
Press, Pulpit, and PLATFORM sprang from
the so-called Mud Sill strata of Society. An
drew jackson, whose birth place never knew
the luxury of a carpet, Henry Clay, the
mill boy Of the Slashes," James X. Polk.
whose log cabin still stands near PIneville.
In Mecklenburg county, John G.. Calhoun.
Thos. II. Benton, Stonewall jackson, Who
had to foot it to Washington to obtain his
cadet-commission, Gen. \. b. Forest;-but
these will suffice for examples of eminent
Southerners, who arose from the humblest
to the highest rank, despite the haughti-
hood of the chivalry. 1t would be useless.
however, to attempt to combat the deep
seated prejudices OF the present generation at
the North. The Prlntlng-Press which did
SO much to create them, may in time undo
them; but not until the rising sons and
daughters of the South shall learn to take
their pens to dissipate delusions, and expose
calumnies which their fathers ~unwisely dis
missed with contempt, or neglected with in
difference. The aar would not have occurred.
slavery could not have been abolished. had
the SOutherners shown common prudence
in meeting and r~efuting the flood of false
hood and misrepresentation poured out from
thousands of Abolition presses, which not
only prejudiced the whole world against us.
but also deceived multitudes OF persons at
the North who otherwise would have been
our friends. A myriad of printed lies about
the South were allowed to pass without anv
sort of notice, except through impassioned
defamation by public speakers, whose utter
ances were themselves misrepresented, and
made to appear as ~insolent defiance of the
entire Northern people. The matter is here
dwelt upon, because even at the present day
many a lie that is a deadly blister upon the
growth, and good name, of the South. is
allowed to ring round the world without a
single note Of denial, save perhaps in some
local journal, not seen by one hundred per-
sons outside of the State boundaries.
wAR-CLOUDs UPON II HORIZON.
| remained three sessions at Tuscarora
passing my thirteenth and fourteenth birth
days amid It's sylvan retirement. At the
end of the second session my brother Ham
ilton graduated with distinction, and re-
turned South to read medicine with Dr..
Collett Leventhorpe, since SO distinguished
In another field. 1t was quite a surprise to
the Natives" who looked for no such
good thing to come out OF the Southern
Nazareth, when Hamilton carried off the
First Honors; > and they were even more
amazed to hear his eloquent young lips
pleading in the "Valedictory Address for
the fostering of a spirit Of large-hearted for
bearance and patriotism between all sections
of the land, that the Union of our ancestors
might be perpetuated, and the sa%criliglous
hand Of Fanaticism stricken away from the
Temple of our Liberties. Brave, broad
soul Little did he imagine how prophetic
were his words, nor that within less than
two years he should offer up his bri
youth, a noble sacrifice, upon the bloody
crest of Malvern Hill, in defence of those
Liberties
1t might seem unlikely that youths of SO
immature age. in this mountain Arcadia,
surrounded by the daily distractions of
school-lite, should take any notice Of the
march of political events. But this would
be a mistake. At intervals, happily OF short
duration, the sectional line famed as hot
and spluttering between the Northern and
Southern students in their teens, as be
tween the Congressional Blow-Hards of
three-ScOre.
For myself, an early taste for reading, and
continual association with persons older
than myself, caused me to catch something
more than passing glimpses OF the tumul-
tuous Hurly-Burly Of the times, and to be
come vaguely impressed with a sense OF
coming storms. The National horizon was
indeed already overcast. The little cloud OF
Aboliuonisln, at first no bigger than the
size Of a mans hand had expanded and
darkened under the t%lreless Vaccinations OF
trenzied fanatics, seconded by smartlnS sec,
tional preiudices, until already its dismal
shadows overspread the whole North, and
rolled loweringly Southwark, accompanied
by mutterings Of menace, and Hastings OF
fro anI turyl TanUht nv NV GdIiI lessons
in Familiar Science that huge storm
clouds, thus surcharged with electrical gun
powder, rarely fail to drift together. as II
III stually attracted, and meeting with a
crash. hurl Town terrific torrents OF Name
ard destruction, | watched the pending
collision of the sections with strange tasclna
ton, and boyish eagerness, which considered
only the ''pomp and circumstance; ana
not the horrors. " of war, -h0f1t0u
BeUat Yet none Of us dreamed that at TINS
very time a deep-laid plot was beng organ
,,nl - I,,,l a H,o,- Holt ctraIuht Ht the nedrU