The Memories of Fifty Years Part 6

Surrounded not only with all the difficulties presented to him by the unsubdued wilderness, but the perils of savage warfare, he unflinchingly went forward in his enterprise, daring and conquering every obstacle nature and the savages interposed. He was an uneducated man; but of strong mind, ardent temperament, and most determined will.

Many anecdotes are related of his intrepidity, self-respect, and unbending will. He was a native of Augusta County, Virginia, and emigrated to Georgia about the same time that Elijah Clarke came from North Carolina and settled in that portion of the new territory now known as Clarke County.

These two remarkable men formed a nucleus for those of their respective States who came at subsequent periods to make a home in Georgia. They were models to the youth of their respective neighborhoods, and gave tone to the character of the population for many years after they were in their graves. About the same time, the Earlys came from Virginia, and the Abercrombies from North Carolina, and located respectively in the new counties of Greene and Hanc.o.c.k. They were all men of strong character, and all exercised great influence with those who accompanied or came to them at a subsequent period.

Among the very first to locate in Greene County was Colonel David Love, from North Carolina, and soon after came the Nesbits, Jacksons, and Hortons; all of whom settled upon the head-waters of the Ogeechee and upon Shoulderbone Creek.

The country was very attractive, the soil very generous, the water good, and the health remarkable. The general topography of Middle Georgia (as that portion of Georgia is now termed) is unsurpa.s.sed by any other portion of the State for beauty--hill and dale, the one not rising many feet above the other, generally with beautiful slopes, and scarcely at any place with so much abruptness as to forbid cultivation.

Upon these lovely acclivities were built the cabins of the emigrants, at the base of which, and near the house, was always to be found a fountain of pure, sweet water, gushing and purling away over sand and pebbles, meandering through a valley which it fertilized, and which abounds in shrubs flowering in beauty, and sheltered by forests of oak, hickory, pine, and gum.

Those who first came were frequently compelled to unite in a settlement at some selected point, and, for defence against the inroads of the savages, were obliged to build stockade forts, with blockhouses.

Nature seems to have prepared, during the Revolution, men for subduing the wilderness and its savage inhabitants. They cheerfully encountered all the difficulties and hazards thus presented, and constantly pursued their object to its consummation. They came from every section of the older communities, and all seemed animated with the same spirit. They were orderly, but rude; and though beyond the pale of the law, they were a law unto themselves; and these laws were strictly enforced by a public opinion which gave them being and efficiency. With remarkably simple habits and very limited opportunities, their wants were few; and these were supplied by their own industry and frugality upon the farm.

Their currency was silver coin, Spanish milled, and extremely limited in quant.i.ty. The little trade carried on was princ.i.p.ally by barter, and social intercourse was confined almost exclusively to the Sabbath. The roads were rough and uneven, consisting almost entirely of a way sufficiently wide for an ox-cart to pa.s.s, cut through the forest, where the stumps and stones remained; and in soft or muddy places, the bodies of small trees or split rails were placed side by side, so as to form a sort of bridge or causeway, so rough as to test and not unfrequently to destroy the wheels of the rude vehicles of the country. These obtained and to this day receive the sobriquet of Georgia railroads or corduroy turnpikes.

Very few of these immigrants were independent of labor; and most of them devoted six days of the week to the cultivation of a small farm and its improvement. Children learned early to a.s.sist in this labor, and those who were sent to school, almost universally employed the Sat.u.r.day of each week in farm-work.

Man's social nature induces aggregation into communities, which stimulates an ambition to excel in every undertaking. From this emulation grows excellence and progress in every laudable enterprise.

These small communities, as they grew from accessions coming into the country, began to build rude places for public worship, which were primitive log-cabins, and served as well the purposes of a school-house. Here the adult population a.s.sembled on the Sabbath, and the children during the week. This intercourse, together with the dependence of every one at times for neighborly a.s.sistance, was greatly promotive of harmony and mutual confidence. Close and familiar acquaintance revealed to all the peculiar character of every one--the virtuous and the vicious, the energetic or the indolent, the n.o.ble and the ign.o.ble--and all very soon came to be appreciated according to their merit.

Rude sports const.i.tuted the amus.e.m.e.nts of the young--wrestling, leaping, and hunting; and he who was most expert at these was the neighborhood's pride: he rode from church with the prettiest girl, and was sure to be welcomed by her parents when he came; and to be selected by such an one was to become the neighborhood's belle. At log-rollings, quiltings, and Sat.u.r.day-night frolics, he was the first and the most admired.

The girls, too, were not without distinction--she who could spin the greatest number of cuts of cotton, or weave the greatest number of yards of cloth, was most distinguished, and most admired; but especially was she distinguished who could spin and weave the neatest fabric for her own wear, of white cloth with a turkey-red stripe--cut, and make it fit the labor-rounded person and limbs--or make, for father's or brother's wear, the finest or prettiest piece of jean--cook the nicest dinners for her beau, or dance the longest without fatigue.

The s.e.xes universally a.s.sociated at the same school, (a system unfortunately grown out of use,) and grew up together with a perfect knowledge of the disposition, temperament, and general character of each other. And, as a.s.suredly as the boy is father to the man, the girl is mother to the woman; and these peculiarities were attractive or repulsive as they differed in individuals, and were always an influence in the selection of husbands and wives. The prejudices of childhood endure through life, particularly those toward persons. They are universally predicated upon some trait of manner or character, and these, as in the boy perceived, are ever prominent in the man. So, too, with the girl, and they only grow with the woman. This is a paramount reason why parties about contracting marriage-alliances should be well aware of whom they are about to select. The consequence of this intercommunication of the s.e.xes from childhood, in the primitive days of Georgia's first settlement, was seen in the harmony of families. In the age which followed, a separation or divorce was as rare as an earthquake; and when occurring, agitated the whole community. For then a marriage was deemed a life-union, for good or for evil, and was not lightly or inconsiderately entered into.

The separation of the s.e.xes in early youth, and especially at school, destroys or prevents in an eminent degree the restraining influences upon the actions of each other, and that tender desire for the society of each other, which grows from childhood's a.s.sociations. Brought together at school in early life, when the mind and soul are receiving the impressions which endure through life, they naturally form intimacies, and almost always special partialities and preferences.

Each has his or her favorite, these partialities are usually reciprocal, and their consequence is a desire on the part of each to see the other excel. To accomplish this, children, as well as grown people, will make a greater effort than they will simply to succeed or to gratify a personal ambition to that effect. Thus they sympathize with and stimulate each other. Every Georgia boy of fifty years ago, with gray-head and tottering step now, remembers his sweetheart, for whom he carried his hat full of peaches to school, and for whom he made the grape-vine swing, and how at noon he swung her there.

'T is bonny May; and I to-day Am wrinkled seventy-four, Still I enjoy, as when a boy, Much that has gone before.

Is it the leaves and trees, or sheaves Of yellow, ripened grain, Which wake to me, in memory, My boyhood's days again?

These seem to say 't is bonny May, As when they sweetly grew, And gave their yield, in wood and field, To me, when life was new.

But nought beside--ah, woe betide!-- Which grew with me is here-- The home, the hall, the mill, the all Which young life holds so dear.

The school-house, spring, and little thing, With eyes so bright and blue, Who'd steal away with me and play When school's dull hours were through,

Are memories now; and yet, oh! how It seems but yesterday Since I was there, with that sweet dear, In the wild wood at play.

The hill was steep where we would leap; The grape-vine swing hung high, And I would throw the swing up so That, startled, she would cry.

But though she cried, she still relied (And seemed to have no fear) On me to hold the swing, and told Me "not to frighten her."

But I was wild, and she no child, And not afraid, I deemed; So tossed as high the swing as I Could--when she fell and screamed.

She was not harmed; but I, alarmed, Ran quickly to a.s.sist, And lifted her, all pale with fear, Within my arms, and kissed

Her pallid cheek, ere she could speak: But I had seen, you know, (Ah! what of this? that sight and kiss Was fifty years ago,)

That little boot and pretty foot, So neatly formed and small-- The swelling calf, and stifled laugh-- How I remember all!

That lovely one has long since gone, Is dust, and only dust, now; Yet I recall that swing and fall, As though it had been just now.

Take these lines, reader, if you please, as an evidence of how the memories growing out of the a.s.sociations of boyhood's school-days endure through life. This a.s.sociation of the s.e.xes operates as a restraint upon both, salutary to good conduct and good morals. Such restraints are far more effective than the staid lessons of some old, wrinkled duenna of a school-mistress, whose failure to find a sweetheart in girlhood, or a husband in youthful womanhood, has soured her toward every man, and filled her with hatred for the happiness she witnesses in wedded life, and which is ever present all around her. Her warnings are in violation of nature. She has forgotten she was ever young or inspired with the feelings and hopes of youth. Men are monsters, and marriage a h.e.l.l upon earth. Girls will not believe this, and will get married. How much better, then, that they should cultivate, in a.s.sociation, the generous and natural feelings of the heart, and during the period allotted by nature for the growth of the feelings natural to the human bosom, as well as to the growth of the person and mind, than to be told what they should be by one disappointed of all the fruits of them, and hating the world because she is! It is the mother who should form the sentiments and direct the conduct of daughters, and in their teachings should never forget that nature is teaching also. Let their lessons always teach the proper indulgences of nature, as well as the proper and prudent restraints to the natural feelings of the human heart, and so deport themselves toward their daughters from infancy as to win their confidence and affection. The daughters, when properly trained, will always come with their little complaints in childhood, and seek consolation, leaning upon the parent's knee, and, with solicitude, look up into the parental face for sympathy and advice. Home-teaching and home-training makes the proper woman. When this is properly attended to, there needs no boarding-school or female-college finish, which too frequently uproots every virtuous principle implanted by the careful and affectionate teaching of pious, gentle, and intelligent mothers. But few mothers, who are themselves properly trained, forget nature in the training and education of their daughters; and a truly natural woman is a blessing to society and a crown of glory to her husband. I mean by a natural training a knowledge of herself, as well as a knowledge of the offices of life and the domestic duties of home. Every woman in her girlhood should learn from her mother the mission and destinies of woman, as well as what is due to society, to their families, to themselves, and to G.o.d. The woman who enters life with a knowledge of what life is, and what is due to her and from her in all the relations of life, has a thousand chances for happiness through life unknown to the belle of the boarding-school, who, away from home influences, is artificially educated to be in all things prominent before the world, and entirely useless in the discharge of domestic duties. She may figure as the lady-president or vice-president of charitable a.s.sociations, or the lady-president of some prominent or useless society; but never as a dutiful, devoted wife, or affectionate, instructive mother to her children. Her household is managed by servants, and about her home nothing evinces the neat, provident, and attentive housewife.

The whole system of education, as practised by the Protestants of the United States, is wrong; religious prejudice prevents their learning from the Catholics, and particularly from the Jesuit Catholics, who are far in advance of their Protestant brethren. They learn from the child as they teach the child. In the first place, none are permitted to teach who are not by nature, as well as by education, qualified to teach; nature must give the gentleness, the kindness, and the patience, with the capacity to impart instruction. They learn, first, the child's nature, the peculiarities of temper, and fashion these to obedience and affection; they first teach the heart to love--not fear; they warn against the evils of life--teach the good, and the child's duties to its parents, to its brothers and sisters, to its teachers, to its playmates, and to its G.o.d. When the heart is mellowed and yields obedience in the faithful discharge of these duties, and the brain sufficiently matured to comprehend the necessity of them, then attention is directed to the mind; its capacities are learned and known, and it is treated as this knowledge teaches is proper: it is, as the farmer knows, the soil of his cultivation, and is prepared by careful tillage before the seed is sown. The vision of the child's mind is by degrees expanded; the horizon of its knowledge is enlarged, and still the heart's culture goes on in kindness and affection. The pupil has learned to love the teacher, and receives with alacrity his teaching; he goes to him, without fear, for information on every point of duty in morals, as on every difficult point of literary learning. He knows he will be received kindly, and dealt with gently. Should he err, he is never rebuked in public, nor harshly in private; the teacher is aggrieved, and in private he kindly complains to the offender, whose love for his preceptor makes him to feel, and repent, and to err no more. All this is only known to the two; his school-fellows never know, and have no opportunity for triumph or raillery. Thus taught from the cradle, principles become habits; and on these, at maturity, he is launched upon the world, with every safeguard for his future life. So with the girl. With the experience of forty-five years, the writer has never known a vicious, bad woman, wife, or mother trained in a Jesuit convent, or reared by an educated Catholic mother.

The daughters of the pioneers of Georgia's early settlements received a home education; at least, in the duties of domestic life. In the discharge of these duties, they gained robust const.i.tutions and vigorous health; they increased the butcher's bill at the expense of the doctor's; and such women were the mothers of the men who have made a history for their country, for themselves and their mothers. I may be prolix and prosaic, but I love to remember the mothers of fifty years ago--she who gave birth to Lucius Q.C. and Mirabeau B. Lamar, to William C. Dawson, Bishop George Pierce, Alexander Stuart, Joseph Lumpkin, and glorious Bob Toombs. I knew them all, and, with affectionate delight, remember their virtues, and recall the social hours we have enjoyed together, when they were matrons, and I the companion of their sons. And now, when all are gone, and time is crowding me to the grave, the n.o.bleness of their characters, the simplicity of their bearing in the discharge of their household duties, and the ingenuousness of their manners in social intercourse, is a cherished, venerated memory. None of these women were ever in a boarding-school, never received a lesson in the art of entering a drawing-room or captivating a beau. They were sensible, modest, and moral women, and their virtues live after them in the exalted character of their ill.u.s.trious sons. Their literary education in early life was, of necessity, neglected, because of the want of opportunities; but in the virtues and duties of life, they were thoroughly educated; and none of these, or any of their like, was ever Mrs. President or Secretary of any pretentious or useless society or a.s.sociation.

The little education or literature they acquired was in the old log school-house, where boys and girls commingled as pupils under the teaching of some honest pedagogue, who aspired to teach only reading, writing, and arithmetic, in a simple way. It must not be supposed, from the foregoing remarks, that I object to female education; on the contrary, I would have every woman an educated woman. But I would have this education an useful and proper education; one not wholly ornamental and of no practical use, but one obtained at home, and under the parental care and influence--such an one as made Mrs. Ripley, of Concord, Ma.s.sachusetts, the wonder and admiration of every sensible man. She who studied La Place's _Mecanique Celeste_ when she was making biscuit for her breakfast, and who solved a problem in the higher mathematics when darning her stockings; an education where the useful may be taught and learned to grace the ornamental--where the harp and piano shall share with the needle and the cooking-stove, and the pirouettes of the dancing-master shall be only a step from the laundry and the kitchen.

The duties of wives and mothers are to home, husband, and children; and this includes all of woman's duty to the country, and in the intelligent and faithful discharge of which the great ends of life are subserved. Good neighborhood, good government, and happy communities secure the implanting and cultivation of good principles, and the proper teaching of proper duties. The wise direction of literary education to sons and to daughters, all comes within the range of home, and home duties especially inc.u.mbent upon mothers. The domestic duties and domestic labors should be a prime consideration in the education of daughters. The a.s.sociation of the mother and child from birth, until every principle which is to guide and govern it through life is implanted, makes it the duty of the mother to know the right, and to teach it, too. Example and precept should combine; and this necessity compels a constant watch, not only over the child's, but over the mother's language and conduct. All these duties imply a close devotion to home: for here is the germ which is to grow into good or into evil, as it is nursed and cultivated, or wickedly neglected. Begin at the beginning, if you would accomplish well your work; and to do this, application and a.s.siduity are indispensable; and these are duties only to be discharged at home. They admit of a relaxation of time sufficient for every social duty exacted by society, if that society is such as it should be; and if not, it should neither occupy time not attention.

In this is comprised all woman's duties, and they are paramount; for upon their successful application depend the well-being of society and the proper and healthful administration of wise and salutary laws. The world is indebted to woman for all that is good and great. Let every woman emulate Cornelia, the Roman mother, and, when a giddy, foolish neighbor runs to her to exhibit newly purchased jewels, be found, like the Roman matron, at her tambour-work; and like her, too, when her boys from school shall run to embrace her, say to the thoughtless one, "These are my jewels!" and Rome will not alone boast of her Gracchi and their incomparable mother.

The duties of home cultivate reflection and stimulate to virtue. For this reason, women are more pious than men; and for this reason, too, they are more eminent in purity. Contact with the domestic circle does not contaminate or corrupt, as the baser contact with the world is sure to do.

The home circle is select and chaste--the promiscuous intermingling with the world meretricious and contaminating. The mother not trained to the appreciation and discharge of the domestic duties, was never the mother of a great representative mind; because she is incapable of imparting those stern principles of exalted morality and fixity of purpose essential in forming the character of such men. The mother of Cincinnatus was a farmer's wife; of Leonidas, a shepherdess; and the mothers of Washington, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, William H, Crawford, and Andrew Jackson were all the wives of farmers--rural and simple in their pursuits, distinguished for energy and purity; constant in their principles, and devoted to husband, home, and children. They never dreamed it was woman's vocation or duty to go out into the world and mingle in its strifes and contentions--but at home, to view them, reflect upon their consequences to society, and upon the future of their sons and daughters, and warn them what to emulate and what to shun. They, as did their husbands, felt the necessity of preserving that delicacy of thought and action which is woman's ornament, and which is more efficient in rebuking licentiousness and profligacy in the young and the old than all the teaching of the schools without such example. Such were the mothers of the great and the good of our land, and such the mothers of those men now prominent and distinguished in the advocacy and support of the great principles of natural rights and humanity.

It is a mooted question whether the purposes of human life demand a high, cla.s.sical education among the ma.s.ses; or whether the general happiness is promoted by such education. In the study of the human mind in connection with human wants, we are continually met with difficulties arising from the want of education; and quite as frequently with those resulting from education. So much so, that we hear from every wise man the declaration that as many minds are ruined by over-education as from the want of education.

Man's curse is to labor. This labor must of necessity be divided to subserve the wants of society--and common sense would teach that each should be educated as best to enable him to perform that labor which may fall to his lot in life. But who shall determine this lot? Every day's experience teaches the observant and thinking man that no one individual is uselessly born. To deny this proposition would be to call in question the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. Every one possesses proclivities for some one avocation, and should be educated for its pursuit. This is manifested in very early life; in some much more palpably than in others. This is always the case when the apt.i.tude is decisive. In such cases this idiosyncrasy will triumph over every adverse circ.u.mstance, educational or otherwise; but in the less palpable, it will not; and the design of nature may, and indeed constantly is, disappointed, and improper education and improper pursuits given. In these pursuits or callings, the person thus improperly placed there never succeeds as he would had his bent or mental inclination been observed, and his education directed to it, and he given to its pursuit. Such persons labor through life painfully; they have no taste or inclination for the profession, business, or trade in which they are engaged; its pursuit is an irksome, thankless labor; while he who has fallen into nature's design, and is working where his inclinations lead, labors happily, because he labors naturally. These inclinations the parent or guardian should observe; and when manifested, should direct the education for the calling nature has designed. Idiosyncrasies are transmissible or inherited. In old and populous communities, where every pursuit or profession is full, the father generally teaches his own to his son or sons. Where this has extended through three or four generations, the proclivity is generally strongly marked, and in very early childhood made manifest. Thus, in the third or fourth generation, where all have been blacksmiths, the child will be born with the muscles of the right arm more developed than those of the left, and the first plaything he demands is a hammer.

So, where a family have been traders, will the offspring naturally discover an aptness for bargaining and commerce. This is ill.u.s.trated in the instincts of the Jews, a people of extraordinary brain and wonderful tenacity of purpose. Five thousand years since, a small fragment of the Semitic race, residing in Mesopotamia between the waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris, consisting of two families, came into the land of Canaan, in Asia Minor; from them have descended the people known as Jews. The country over which they spread, and which is known as Judea, is not more than four hundred miles long by two hundred and fifty in breadth, situated between two populous and powerful empires, the a.s.syrian and Egyptian, who, waging war too frequently, made the land of Judea their battle-field, and its people the objects of persecution and oppression. The earnings of their labor were deemed legitimate prey by both, and taken wherever found: they were led into captivity by the a.s.syrians and by the Egyptians, enslaved, and denied the legal right to possess the soil--which, to the everlasting disgrace of Christian Europe, was a restriction upon this wonderful people until within the present century. A blind bigotry would have blotted them from the face of the earth, but for that energy, talent, and enterprise possessed by them in a superior degree to any people upon the globe. Inspired by a sublime belief that they were the chosen people of G.o.d, no tyranny nor oppression could subdue their energies. They prayed and labored, went forward with untiring determination, upheld by their faith, and always, under the direst distress, found comfort from this belief and the fruits of incessant labor. The soil of their loved Canaan was barren, and yielded grudgingly to the most persistent labor. This drove them to trade, and an extended intercourse with the world. Without a national government of sufficient power to protect them when robbed by the people or the governments surrounding their own, they were compelled, for self-protection, to resort to every means of concealing the earnings of their enterprise and superior knowledge and skill from Christian and pagan alike. They gave value to the diamond, that in a small stone, easy of concealment, immense wealth might be hidden. They invented the bill of exchange, by which they could at pleasure transfer from one country to another their wealth, and avoid the danger of spoliation from the hand of power and intolerance. Without political or civil rights in any but their own country, they were compelled to the especial pursuit of commerce for centuries, and we now see that seven-tenths of all Jews born, as naturally turn to trade and commerce as the infant to the breast. It has become an instinct.

To these persecutions the world is probably indebted for the developments of commerce--the bringing into communication the nations of the earth for the exchange of commodities necessary to the use and comfort of each other, not of the growth or production of each, enlarging the knowledge of all thus communicating, and teaching that civilization which is the enlightenment and the blessing of man--ameliorating the savage natures of all, and teaching that all are of G.o.d, and equally the creatures of His love and protection; and leading also to that development of mind in the Israelite which makes him conspicuous to-day above any other race in the great attributes of mind--directing the policy of European governments--first at the Bar, first in science, first in commerce, first in wealth--preserving the great traits of nationality without a nation, and giving tone, talent, wealth, and power to all.

A few men only are born to think. Their minds expand with education, and their usefulness is commensurate with it. This few early evince a proclivity so strong for certain avocations as to enable those who have the direction of their future to educate them for this pursuit. This proclivity frequently is so overpowering as to prompt the possessor, when the early education has been neglected, to educate himself for this especial idiosyncrasy. This was the case with Newton--with Stevenson, the inventor of the locomotive-engine, who, at twenty years of age, was ignorant even of his letters. Arkwright was a barber, and almost entirely illiterate when he invented the spinning-jenny. Train, the inventor of the railroad, was, at the time of its invention, a coal-heaver, and entirely illiterate.

These cases are rare, however. The great ma.s.s of mankind are born to manual labor, and only with capacities suited for it. To attempt to cultivate such minds for eminent purposes would be folly. Even supposing they could be educated--which is scarcely supposable, for it would seem a contravention of Heaven's fiat--they could no more apply this learning, which would simply be by rote, than they could go to the moon. Such men are not unfrequently met with, and are designated, by common consent, learned fools. Nature points out the education they should receive. In like manner with those of higher and n.o.bler attributes, educate them for their pursuits in life. It requires not the same education to hold a plough, or drive an ox, that it does to direct the course of a ship through a trackless sea, or to calculate an eclipse; and what is essential to the one is useless to the other.--But I am wandering away from the purpose of this work. Turning back upon the memories of fifty years ago, and calling up the lives and the histories of men, and women too, I have known, I was led into these reflections, and ere I was aware they had stolen from my pen.

The rude condition of a country is always imparted to the character of its people, and out of this peculiarity spring the rough sports and love of coa.r.s.e jokes and coa.r.s.e humor. No people ever more fully verified this truth than the Georgians, and to-day, even among her best educated, the love of fun is a prevailing trait. Her traditions are full of the practical jokes and the practical jokers of fifty years ago. The names of Dooly, Clayton, Prince, Bacon, and Longstreet will be remembered in the traditions of fun as long as the descendants of their compatriots continue to inhabit the land. The c.o.c.k-fight, the quarter-race, and the gander-pulling are traditions now, and so is the fun they gave rise to; and I had almost said, so is the honesty of those who were partic.i.p.ants in these rude sports. Were they not more innocent outlets to the excessive energies of a mercurial and fun-loving people than the faro-table and shooting-gallery of to-day?

Every people must have their amus.e.m.e.nts and sports, and these, unrestrained, will partake of the character of the people and the state of society. Sometimes the narrow prejudices of bigoted folly will inveigh against these, and insist upon their restraint by law; and these laws, in many of the States, remain upon the statute-book a rebuking evidence of the shameless folly of fanatical ignorance. Of these, the most conspicuous are the blue-laws of Connecticut, and the more absurd and criminal laws of Ma.s.sachusetts against amus.e.m.e.nts not only necessary, but healthful and innocent. Even in the present advanced state of knowledge and civilization, do we occasionally hear ranted from the pulpit denunciations of dancing, as a sinful and G.o.d-offending amus.e.m.e.nt. Such men should not be permitted to teach or preach--it is to attenuate folly and fanaticism, to circ.u.mscribe the happiness of youth, and belie the Bible.

The emigrants to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia were all persons of like character, combining a mixture of English, Irish, and Scotch blood. They were enterprising, daring, and remarkable for great good sense. Rude from the want of education and a.s.sociation with a more polished people, they were nevertheless high-principled and full of that chivalrous spirit which prompts a natural courtesy, courts danger, and scorns the little and mean--open-handed in their generosity, and eminently candid and honest in all their intercourse and dealings with their fellow-men. These elements, collected from various sections, combined to form new communities in the wild and untamed regions. In their conflicts with the savages were shown a daring fearlessness and a high order of military talent in very many of the prominent leaders of the different settlements. They had no chronicler to note and record their exploits, and they exist now only in the traditions of the country.

The names of Shelby and Kenton, of Kentucky; of Davidson and Jackson, of Tennessee; of Clarke, Mathews, and Adams, of Georgia; Dale, of Alabama, and Claiborne, of Mississippi, live in the memory of the people of their States, together with those of Tipton, Sevier, Logan, and Boone, and will be in the future history of these States, with their deeds recorded as those whose enterprise, energy, and fearlessness won from the wilderness and the savage their fertile and delightful lands, to be a home and a country for their posterity.

The children of such spirits intermarrying, could but produce men of talent and enterprise, and women of beauty, intelligence, and virtue.

In the veins of these ran only streams of blue blood--such as filled the veins of the leaders of the Crusades--such as warmed the hearts of the O'Neals and O'Connors, of Wallace and Bruce, and animated the bosoms of the old feudal barons of England, who extorted the great charter of human liberty from King John. There was no mixture of the pale Saxon to taint or dilute the n.o.ble current of the Anglo-Norman blood which flowed through and fired the hearts of these descendants of the n.o.bility and gentry of Britain. They were the cavaliers in chivalry and daring, and despised, as their descendants despised, the Roundheads and their descendants, with their cold, dissembling natures, hypocritical in religion as faithless in friendship, without one generous emotion or enn.o.bling sentiment.

It is not remarkable that conflict should ensue between races so dissimilar in a struggle to control the Government: true to the instincts of race, each contended for that which best suited their genius and wants; and not at all remarkable that all the generous gallantry in such a conflict should be found with the Celt, and all the cruel rapacity and meanness with the Saxon. Their triumph, through the force of numbers, was incomplete, until their enemies were tortured by every cruelty of oppression, and the fabric of the Government dashed to atoms. This triumph can only be temporary. The innate love of free inst.i.tutions, universal in the heart of the Celtic Southerner, will _yet_ unite all the races to retrieve the lost. This done, victory is certain.

The descendants of these pioneers have gone out to people the extended domain reaching around the Gulf, and are growing into strength, without abatement of the spirit of their ancestors. Very soon time and their energies will repair the disasters of the recent conflict; and reinvigorated, the shackles of the Puritan shall restrain no longer, when a fierce democracy shall restore the Const.i.tution, and with it the liberty bequeathed by their ancestors.

With this race, fanaticism in religion has never known a place.

Rational and natural, they have ever worshipped with the heart and the attributes of their faith. Truth, sincerity, love, and mercy have ever marked their characters. Too honest to be superst.i.tious, and too sincere to be hypocrites, the concentrated love of freedom unites the race, and the hatred of tyranny will stimulate the blood which shall retrieve it from the dominion of the baser blood now triumphant and rioting in the ruin they have wrought.

In the beginning of the settlements, and as soon as fears of the inroads from the savages had subsided, attention was given to the selection of separate and extended homes over the country, to the opening of farms, and their cultivation. The first consideration was food and raiment. All of this was to be the production of the farm and home industry: grain enough was to be grown to serve the wants of the family for bread, and to feed the stock; for this was to furnish the meat, milk, and b.u.t.ter. Cotton enough to serve the wants of families, together with the wool from the flock, and some flax, were of prime consideration. All of this was prepared and manufactured into fabrics for clothing and bedding at home. The seed from the cotton was picked by hand; for, as yet, Whitney had not given them the cotton-gin. This work was imposed most generally upon the children of families, white and black, as a task at night, and which had to be completed before going to bed; an ounce was the usual task, which was weighed and spread before the fire; for it was most easily separated from the seed when warm and dry. Usually some petty rewards stimulated the work. In every family it was observed and commented upon, that these rewards excited the diligence of the white children, but were without a corresponding effect upon the black; and any one who has ever controlled the negro knows that his labor is only in proportion to the coercion used to enforce it. His capacity, physically, is equal to the white; but this cannot be bought, or he persuaded to exert it of himself, and is given only through punishment, or the fear of it. The removal of restraint is to him a license to laziness; and the hope of reward, or the cravings of nature, will only induce him to labor sufficiently to supply these for immediate and limited relief.