CONGRESS, U. 



297 



" Sir, the true reason of this hostility to pop- 

 ular education is hostility to democratic insti- 

 tutions. I need not remind many of the mem- 

 ,bers of this body with what pertinacity Mr. 

 Calhoun resisted the application of the majority 

 principle to our system of national government, 

 as subversive of the rights of the States. He 

 warred upon this great principle from the tune 

 of his Fort Hill address, and before that time, 

 down to the day of his death, in the Senate, in 

 popular addresses, and in labored volumes of 

 oss'ays. Xor need I advert to the mighty in- 

 fluence which this great man exerted on South- 

 ern opinion. Sir, there is a widespread hostil- 

 ity all through the Gulf States, more especially, 

 to the great fundamental political right of the 

 majority to rule. ^ 



" It will be reme.mbered, moreover, that the 

 headspring of this rebellion was in the very 

 State where, in the war of the Revolution, the 

 attachment of the people to the aristocratic in- 

 stitutions of the mother country was the hard- 

 est to subdue. This attachment was never 

 wholly extinguished. Flashes of the old aris- 

 tocratic flame have often gleamed out from the 

 revolutionary ashes, as they did recently, when 

 Mr. Russell was assured by many there that 

 they longed to renew their allegiance to some 

 descendant of the royal family of England. Sir, 

 there is a wonderful ' hankering ' in South Car- 

 olina after the ' fleshpots of Egypt.' By refer- 

 ring to the January (1850) number of the Dem- 

 ocratic Review, I find an elaborately written 

 article, from which I have taken the following 

 extract : 



The formation of the cotton States, with Cuba, into 

 a great cotton, tobacco, sugar and coffee-producing 

 Union, calling forth the boundless fertility of Cuba, 

 and renovating the West India Islands with the labor 

 of the blacks of the Southern States, in those hands in 

 which their labor and numbers have thriven so well, 

 and THIS EMPIRE ANNEXED TO BRITAIN, by treaties of 

 perfect reciprocity, giving the latter the command of 

 the eastern commerce by way of Nicaragua, and all the 

 benefits of possession, with'out the responsibility of 

 slave ownership, would be a magnificent exchange for 

 the useless province of Canada. 



" And, sir, I find the following in the news- 

 papers of the day, giving some most significant 

 antecedents of the present distinguished Secre- 

 tary of the Treasury of the so-called Confeder- 

 ate Government: 



I was very much surprised, Mr. Chairman, at the 

 honorable member's speech from Charleston (Colonel 

 Memminger), who said he had rather South Carolina 

 was attached to the Government of Great Britain, as 

 she was previous to the Revolutionary war, than to re- 

 main a member of this Union. Such an expression 

 neither becomes an American nor a Carolinian, and 

 must have been uttered in the heat of argument and 

 declamation, without due consideration. B. F. Perry, 

 in the. South Carolina Lfgislaturefor 1850-51. 



" In an address which this gentleman made 

 before the Virginia Legislature a year or two 

 ago, he uttered sentiments as little in accord 

 with the spirit and genius of our American 

 democracy. 



'' I recently cut from the ' National Intelli- 

 gencer ' a paper which, by its wise, conserva- 



tive, and patriotic course through a long series 

 of years, has placed the friends of constitutional 

 liberty under the most lasting obligations the 

 following short article : 



A NASCENT NOBILITY. In the number of De Bow' a 

 Review for Julv, ISuO, is an elaborate article from the 

 pen of George Fitzhugh, Esq., author of " Sociology for 

 the South," and long a prominent advocate of disunion. 

 In the article designated he gives expression to the fol- 

 lowing aspiration : 



"England has once tried to dispense with nobility, 

 and France twice, but each experiment was a failure. 

 In America we have the aristocracy of wealth and tal- 

 ents, and that aristocracy is somewhat hereditary. 

 The landed aristocracy of the South, who own slaves, 

 approach somewhat to the English nobility. Time 

 must determine whether the quai aristocracy of the 

 South has sufficient power, permanence, and privilege 

 to give stability, durability, and good order to society. 

 It is sufficiently patriotic "and conservative in its feel- 

 ings, but, we fear, wants the powers, privileges, and 

 prerogatives that the experience of all other coun- 

 tries has shown to be necessary .*' 



If such was Mr. Fitzhugh's "fear while the South re- 

 mained in the Union and under the Constitution, we 

 presume his hopes have considerably risen since the 

 outbreak of the present war, for in the same article he- 

 avows a preference for a military government, as being 

 the " most perfect " known to man, and imputes it as a 

 fault to the Republican party that the more advanced 

 of its number were averse to wars. Mr. Fitzhugh's 

 language under this head is as follows : [It will be 

 seen that he finds the perfection of military govern- 

 ment in the fact that it allows " the least liberty " to its 

 subjects.] 



" The most perfect system of government is to be 

 found in armies, because in them there is least of lib- 

 erty, and most of order, subordination, and obedience." 



" It is but a short time since Governor Brown, 

 of Georgia, charged upon the leaders of the 

 secession movement in that State a design to 

 establish 



a strong central government, probably preferring, 

 if they did not fear to risk an avowal of their senti- 

 ments, a limited monarchy, similar to that of Great 

 Britain, or other form of government that will accom- 

 plish the same thing under a different name. 



" Only two or three days before the victory 

 of our fleet at Port Royal. Governor Pickens, 

 of South Carolina, closed his message to the 

 Legislature of that State with the following sig- 

 nificant intimations : 



As far as the Northern States are concerned, their 

 Government is hopelessly gone ; and if we fail, with all 

 our conservative elements to save us, then, indeed, 

 there will be no hope for an independent and free Re- 

 public on this continent, and the public mind will de- 

 spondinglv turn to the stronger and more fixed forms 

 of the Old" \Vorld. 



In this point of view I most respectfully urge that 

 you increase the power and dignity of the State, through 

 all her administrative offices, and adhere firmly to all 

 the conservative principles of our constitution. 



" It were easy to multiply the evidence of 

 hostility among the instigators of secession to 

 what Judge Pratt calls the 'horizontal plane 

 of pure democracy.' The columns of most of 

 the leading journals in the interest of the rebel- 

 lion teem with assaults, direct or indirect, upon 

 the great principles of political equality on 

 which our republican institutions are based. 

 I shall not weary the Senate by any detailed 

 reference to them. I will give an extract from 



