The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1894-09-05
A Lesson of History.

To those who remember the agency
of South Carolina in bringing on the
war of the rebellion, there is something
like poetical justice in the political his
tory of the state that has followed that
event South Carolina was more the
object of indignation on the part of the
North at the period which Immediately
preceded the rebellion and during its
early stages than any other southern
state, and right? so. She was the CEN
tire of the agitation that ''fired the
southern heat" against the national
government for many years; she was
the focus of resistance To the govern
ment after the election of President
Lincoln she was the point at which
the war was actually begun by the
firing upon the national flag.
The state of South Carolina, as it
was constituted in its people and their
institutions, was more the product Of
slavery in it, aggressive and overbear-
ing from than any other state of the
Union. In South Carolina there was
built up a naughty and arrogant aris-
tocracy that looked upon the poor white
men of the state as vassals, as well rs
upon the black men as slaves. More
than this, she regarded herself as the
superior alike of the general govern
ment and of her sister states of the
Union. She defied the laws made by
the general government almost thirty
years before she initiated the rebellion,
and was only saved then from bringing
on conflict at arms by the firmness of
President Jackson and the interposition
for compromise of Henry Clay.
1t was this aristocracy in republic
that brought on the rebellion as it, final
act of contumacy toward republican in
stitutions. The opening of that
struggle saw Sonth Carolina in the con-
troll of the proud and intolerant class of
men. When its end came, they were
defeated, dispersed, and their power ut
terly destroyed. The first effect of this
was their practical subjugation by the
men they had most despised, the black
element in their population.
New misfortunes were in store for
them. They had no longer to fear the
rule of the black man of the state, but
another antagonist appeared in that
white class whom they despised only
less than their colored contemporaries.
These last are the men who have sup
planted the SUCCESSORS of the oldest ar
istOcracy, and who have been in power
in South Carolina for the last few years.
They have revolutionized :he state al
most rs completely a. did the colored
voters themselves. They have put
Wade Hampton out of the Seuate, and
have supplanted him by senator of
character such as To cause Calhoun to
turn in his grave. They have chosen
Governor vino has all the traits that
the Carolinians before the war despised
and detested, and this Governor they
now intend to place in the seat in the
Senate filled by that other representa-
tive of the earlier dominating era, VI.
c. Butler. South Carolina has been
made the subject of two political revo-
lutions, and the second one, which has
installed white men instead Of black in
control, is scarcely less CALLING to what
was the aristocracy than the other. Ii is
a signal retribution To them indeed, and
this second change in her politics is one
for which the state alone is responsible.
The lesson of il is here. South Caro-
lima sought To bc i'm the American re-
public without being of it. She at
tempted to substitute the rule of an ar
istocracy in place of the rule of the peo-
pie. She has met with one of the most
signal failures recorded in history, and
the consequences are still felt at
period thirty years after her aristocracy
was overthrown.-BOstO Herdid