The Memories of Fifty Years Part 7

Stock of every kind except horses was left to find a support in the forest, and at that time, when their range was unlimited, they found it in abundance. Increasing wants stimulated the cultivation of a market crop to supply them, and indigo and tobacco were first resorted to.

Tobacco was the princ.i.p.al staple, and the method of its transportation was extraordinary. As at the present day in Kentucky, it was pressed into very large hogsheads. Upon these were pinned large wooden felloes, forming the circle of a wheel around the hogshead at either end, and in the centre of each head a large pin was inserted. Upon these pins were attached shafts or thills, as to a cart, and to these teams, and thus the hogshead was rolled along rough roads and through streams for sometimes ninety miles to Augusta, for a market. When sold, the shafts were reserved, and upon these was then erected a sort of box, into which the few articles purchased were placed, and dragged home. These articles almost universally consisted of some iron and steel, and a little coffee and sugar, and sometimes a quarter of a pound of tea--universally termed store-tea, to distinguish it from that made from the root of the sa.s.safras and the leaf of the ca.s.sia or tepaun-bush.

Cotton was, to some little extent, cultivated near the seaboard in Georgia and South Carolina, and cleaned of the seeds by a machine similar to that used at the present day for preparing the sea-island cotton for market. This was a tedious and troublesome method, and was incapable of doing the work to any very great extent. Indigo, of a superior quality to the American, was being produced in British India and Central America, and the compet.i.tion was reducing the price to the cost of production. The same difficulty attended the growing of tobacco. Virginia and Maryland, with their abundance of labor, were competing, and cheapening the article to a price which made its production unprofitable. At this juncture, Whitney invented the cotton-gin, and the growth of cotton as a marketable crop commenced upon a more extended scale. In a few years it became general--each farmer growing more or less, according to his means. Some one man, most able to do so, erected a gin-house, first in a county, then in each neighborhood. These either purchased in the seed the cotton of their neighbors, or ginned it and packed it for a certain amount of toll taken from the cotton. This packing was done in round bales, and by a single man, with a heavy iron bar, and was a most laborious and tedious method; and the packages were in the most inconvenient form for handling and transportation.

Up to this time the slave-trade had been looked upon most unfavorably by the people of the South. Among the first sermons I remember to have heard, was one depicting the horrors of this trade. I was by my grandmother's side at Bethany, in Greene county, and, though a child, I remember, as if of yesterday, the description of the manner of capturing the African in his native wilds--how the mother and father were murdered, and the boys and the girls borne away, and how England was abused for the cruel inhumanity of the act. Although unused to the melting mood, the old lady wiped from her eyes a tear, whether in sorrow or sympathy for outraged humanity, or in compliment to the pathos and power of her favorite preacher, I was too young to know or have an opinion. I remember well, however, that she cried, for she pinched me most unmercifully for laughing at her, and at home spanked me for crying. Dear old grandmother! but yesterday I was at your grave, where you have slept fifty-two years, and if I laughed above thy mould at the memory of the many bouts we had more than sixty years ago, and, from the blue bending above, thy spirit looked down in wrath upon the unnatural outrage, be appeased ere I come; for I should fear to meet thee, even in heaven, if out of humor! The roses bloomed above you--sweet emblems of thy purity and rest--and there, close by you, were the pear-trees, planted by your hands, around the roots of which you gathered the rods of my reformation; for I was a truant child. You meant it all for my good, no doubt; but to me it was pa.s.sing through purgatory then, to merit a future good in time. Ah! how well I remember it--all of it. _Requiescat in pace_. I had almost irreverently said, "Rest, cat, in peace."

It was at this period that the compet.i.tion for acc.u.mulating money may be said to have commenced in Middle Georgia. Labor became in great demand, and the people began to look leniently upon the slave-trade.

The marching of Africans, directly imported, through the country for sale, is a memory of sixty-five years ago. The demand had greatly increased, and, with this, the price. The trade was to cease in 1808, and the number brought over was daily augmenting, to hasten to make from the traffic as much money as possible before this time should arrive. The demand, however, was greater than could be supplied. From house to house they were carried for sale. They were always young men and women, or girls and boys, and their clothing was of the simplest kind. That of the men and boys consisted of drawers, only reaching midway the thigh, from the waist. The upper portions of the person and the lower extremities were entirely nude. The females wore a chemise reaching a few inches below the knee, leaving bare the limbs. This was adopted for the purpose of exposing the person, as much as decency would permit, for examination, so as to enable the purchaser to determine their individual capacity for labor. This examination was close and universal, beginning with an inspection of the teeth, which in these young savages were always perfect, save in those where they had been filed to a point in front. This was not uncommon with the males. It was then extended to the limbs, and ultimately to the entire person. They were devoid of shame, and yielded to this inspection without the slightest manifestation of offended modesty. At first they were indifferent to cooked food, and would chase and catch and eat the gra.s.shoppers and lizards with the avidity of wild turkeys, and seemed, as those fowls, to relish these as their natural food.

From such is descended the race which our Christian white brothers of the North have, in their devotion to their duty to G.o.d and their hatred to us, made masters of our destiny. Our faith in the justice and goodness of the same Divine Being bids us believe this unnatural and destructive domination will not be permitted to endure for any lengthy period. Could the curtain which veiled out the future sixty years ago, have been lifted, and the vision of those then subduing the land been permitted to pierce and know the present of their posterity, they would then have achieved a separation from our puritanical oppressors, and built for themselves and their own race, even if in blood, a separate government, and have made it as nature intended it should be to this favored land--a wise and powerful one.

Sooner or later these intentions of Divine wisdom are consummated. The fallible nature of man, through ignorance or the foolish indulgence of bad pa.s.sions in the many, enable the few to delude and control the many, and to postpone for a time the inevitable; but as a.s.suredly as time endures, nature's laws work out natural ends. Generations may pa.s.s away, perhaps perish from violence, and others succeed with equally unnatural inst.i.tutions, making miserable the race, until it, like the precedent, pa.s.ses from the earth. Yet these great laws work on, and in the end triumph in perfecting the Divine will.

To the wise and observant this design of the Creator is ever apparent; to the foolish and wicked, never.

John Wesley had visited Savannah, and travelled through the different settlements then in embryo, teaching the tenets and introducing the simple worship of the church of his founding, after a method established by himself, and which gave name and form to the sect, now, and almost from its incipiency known as Methodist. This organization and the tenets of its faith were admirably suited to a rude people, and none perhaps could have been more efficient in forming and improving such morals. Unpretending, simple in form, devoid of show or ceremony, it appealed directly to the purer emotions of our nature, and through the natural devotion of the heart lifted the mind to the contemplation and inspired the soul with the love of G.o.d. Its doctrines, based upon the purest morality, easily comprehensible, and promising salvation to all who would believe, inspiring an enthusiasm for a pure life, were natural, and naturally soon became wide-spread, and as the writer believes, has done more in breaking away the shackles of ignorance and debasing superst.i.tion from the mind, than any other system of worship or doctrine of faith taught by man; and to this, in a great degree, is due the freedom of thought, independence of feeling and action, chivalrous bearing, and high honor of the Southern people. Inculcating as it does the simple teachings of the gospel of Christ,--to live virtuously--do no wrong--love thy neighbor as thyself, and unto all do as you would be done by,--a teaching easy of comprehension, and which, when sternly enforced by a pure and elevated public sentiment, becomes the rule of conduct, and society is blessed with harmony and right.

This moral power is omnipotent for good, concentrating communities into one without divisions or dissensions, to be wielded for good at once and at all times. Nothing evil can result from such concentration of opinions being directed by the vicious and wicked, so long as the moral of this faith shall control the mind and heart.

Camp-meetings, an inst.i.tution of this church, and which were first commenced in Georgia, are a tradition there now. Here and there through the country yet remains, in ruinous decay, the old stand or extemporized pulpit from which the impa.s.sioned preacher addressed the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude of anxious listeners; and around the square now overgrown with brush-wood and forest-trees, prostrate and rotten, the remains of the cabin tents may be seen, where once the hospitality of the owners and worshippers was dispensed with a heartiness and sincerity peculiar to the simple habits, and honest, kindly emotions of a rude and primitive people.

How well do I remember the first of these meetings I ever witnessed! I was a small lad, and rode behind my father on horseback to the ground.

It was sixty-five years ago. The concourse was large, consisting of the people of all the country around--men, women, and children, white and black. Around a square enclosing some six acres of ground, the tents were arranged--arbors of green boughs cut from the adjoining forest formed a shelter from the sun's rays. In front of all of these, shading the entrance to the tent, under this friendly sheltering from the heat of the sun, a.s.sembled the owners and the guests of each, in social and unceremonious intercourse. This was strictly the habit of the young people; and here, in evening's twilight, has been plighted many a vow which has been redeemed by happy unions for life's journey, and to be consummated when the cold weather came. In the rear of the tents were temporary kitchens, presided over in most instances by some old, trusted aunty of ebon hue, whose pride it was to prepare the meals for her tent, and to hear her cooking praised by the preachers and the less distinguished guests of master and mistress. The sermons were preached in the morning, at noon, and at twilight, when all the mult.i.tude were summoned to the grand central stand in the square of the encampment by sounding a tin trumpet or ox-horn. My childish imagination was fired at the sight of this a.s.semblage. My wonder was, whence come all these people? as converging from the radius around came the crowding mult.i.tude, without order and without confusion--the farmer and his brusque wife side by side, leading their flock and friends: he with an ample chair of home manufacture slung by his side for the wife's comfort as she devoutly listened to the pious brother's comforting sermon--the guests and the young of the family following in respectful silence, and at a respectful distance, all tending to the great arbor of bushes covering the place of worship. Over all the s.p.a.ce of the encampment the under-brush had been carefully removed; but the great forest-trees (for these encampments were always in a forest) were left to shade as well as they might the pulpit-stand and grounds. All around was dense forest, wild and beautiful as nature made it.

How well the scene and the worship accorded! There was congruity in all--the woods, the tents, the people, and the worship. The impressions made that day upon my young mind were renewed at many a camp-meeting in after years; and so indelibly impressed as only to pa.s.s away with existence.

The preacher rose upon his elevated platform, and, advancing to the front, where a simple plank extending from tree to tree, before him, formed a subst.i.tute for a table or desk, where rested the hymn-book and Bible, commenced the service by reading a hymn, and then, line by line, repeating it, to be sung by all his congregation.

Whoever has listened, in such a place, amidst a great mult.i.tude, to the singing of that beautiful hymn commencing, "Come, thou fount of every blessing," by a thousand voices, all in accord, and not felt the spirit of devotion burning in his heart, could scarcely be moved should an angel host rend the blue above him, and, floating through the ether, praise G.o.d in song. In that early day of Methodism, very few of those licensed to preach were educated men. They read the Bible, and expounded its great moral truths as they understood them. Few of these even knew that it had been in part originally written in the Hebrew tongue, and the other portion in that of the Greeks; but he knew it contained the promise of salvation, and felt that it was his mission to preach and teach this way to his people, relying solely for his power to impress these wonderful truths upon the heart by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For this reason the sermons of the sect were never studied or written, and their excellence was their fervor and impa.s.sioned appeals to the heart and the wild imaginations of the enthusiastic and unlearned of the land. Genius, undisciplined and untutored by education, is fetterless, and its spontaneous suggestions are naturally and powerfully effective, when burning from lips proclaiming the heart's enthusiasm. Thus extemporizing orations almost daily, stimulated the mind to active thought, and very many of these illiterate young Methodist preachers became in time splendid orators.

It was the celebrated Charles James Fox who said to a young man just entering Parliament, if he desired to become a great orator, and had the genius and feeling from nature, all he had to do was to speak often and learn to think on his feet. It is to this practice the lawyer and the preacher owe the oratory which distinguish these above every other cla.s.s of men. And yet, how few of them ever attain to the eminence of finished orators. Eloquence and oratory are by no means identical: one is the attribute of the heart, the other of the head; and eloquence, however unadorned, is always effective, because it is born of the feelings; and there is ever a sympathy between the hearts of men, and the words, however rude and original, which bubble up from the heart freighted with its feelings, rush with electrical force and velocity to the heart, and stir to the extent of its capacities. Oratory, however finished, is from the brain, and is an art; it may convince the mind and captivate the imagination, but never touches the heart or stirs the soul. To awaken feelings in others, we must feel ourselves. Eloquence is the volume of flame, oratory the shaft of polished ice; the one fires to madness, the other delights and instructs.

Religion is the pathos of the heart, and must be awakened from the heart's emotions. The imagination is the great attribute of the mind, gathering and creating thought and inspiring feeling. Hence, the peculiar system of the Methodists in their worship is the most efficient in proselyting, and especially with a rude, imaginative people.

The camp-meeting was an admirable device for this purpose, and its abandonment by the sect is as foolish as would be that of a knight who would throw away his sword as he was rushing to battle. Fashion is omnipotent in religion, as in other things, and with the more general diffusion of education, camp-meetings have come to be considered as vulgar and unfashionable. To be vulgar, is to be common; to be common, is to be natural. The ma.s.ses, and especially in democratic communities, must always be vulgar or common--must always be, in the main, illiterate and rude; and it is for the conversion and salvation of these mult.i.tudes the preacher should struggle, and in his efforts his most efficient means should be used.

The camp-meeting, at night, when all the fire-stands are ablaze, and the mult.i.tude are a.s.sembled and singing, is beyond description picturesque: when, too, some eloquent and enthusiastic preacher is stimulating to intense excitement the mult.i.tude around him with the fervor of his words, and the wild, pa.s.sionate manifestations of his manner, to see the crowd swaying to and fro, to hear the groans and sobs of the half-frenzied mult.i.tude, and, not unfrequently, the maddened shriek of hysterical fear, all coming up from the half-illuminated spot, is thrillingly exciting. And when the sermon is finished, to hear all this heated ma.s.s break forth into song, the wild melody of which floats, in the stillness of night, upon the breeze to the listening ear a mile away, in cadences mournfully sweet, make the camp-meeting among the most exciting of human exhibitions. In such a school were trained those great masters of pulpit oratory, Pierce, Wynans, Capers, and Bas...o...b.. Whitfield was the great exemplar of these; but none, perhaps, so imitated his style and manner as John Newland Maffit and the wonderful Summerfield.

Like all that is great and enduring, the Methodist Church had its beginning among the humble and lowly. Rocked in the cradle of penury and ignorance, it was firmly fixed in the foundations of society, whence it rose from its own purity of doctrine and simplicity of worship to command the respect, love, and adoption of the highest in the land, and to wield an influence paramount in the destinies of the people and the Government. Its ministers are now the educated and eloquent of the Church militant. Its inst.i.tutions of learning are the first and most numerous all over the South, and it has done for female education in the South more than every other sect of Christians, excepting, perhaps, the Roman Catholic. In the cause of education its zeal is enlisted, and its organization is such as to bring a wonderful power to operate upon the community in every section of the South and West. That this will accomplish much, we have only to look to the antecedents of the Church to determine. Like the coral insect, they never cease to labor: each comes with his mite and deposits it; and, from the humblest beginning, this a.s.siduity and contribution builds up great islands in the sea of ignorance--rich in soil, salubrious in climate, and, finally, triumphant in the conceptions of the chief architect--completing for good the work so humbly begun.

CHAPTER IX.

PEDAGOGUES AND DEMAGOGUES.

EDUCATION--COLLEGES--SCHOOL-DAYS--WILLIAM AND MARY--A SUBSt.i.tUTE-- BOARDING AROUND--ROUGH DIAMONDS--CASTE--GEORGE M. TROUP--A SCOTCH INDIAN--ALEXANDER McGILVERY--THE McINTOSH FAMILY--b.u.t.tON GWINNETT-- GENERAL TAYLOR--MATTHEW TALBOT--JESSE MERCER--AN EXCITING ELECTION.

The subject of education engaged the attention of the people of Georgia at a very early day subsequent to the Revolution. Public schools were not then thought of; probably because such a scheme would have been impracticable. The population was spa.r.s.e, and widely separated in all the rural districts of the country; and to have supplied all with the means of education, would have necessitated an expense beyond the power of the State. A system was adopted, of establishing and endowing academies in the different counties, at the county-seat, where young men who intended to complete a collegiate education might be taught, and the establishment and endowment of a college, where this education might be finished, leaving the rudimental education of the children of the State to be provided for by their parents, as best they could.

Primary schools were gotten up in the different neighborhoods by the concentrated action of its members, and a teacher employed, and paid by each parent at so much per capita for his children. In these schools almost every Georgian--yes, almost every Southerner--commenced his education. It was at these schools were mingled the s.e.xes in pursuit of their A, B, C, and the incidents occurring here became the cherished memories of after life. Many a man of eminence has gone out from these schools with a better education with which to begin life and a conflict with the world, than is obtained now at some of the inst.i.tutions called colleges.

Young men without means, who had acquired sufficient of the rudiments of an English education, but who desired to pursue their studies and complete an education to subserve the purposes of the pursuit in life selected by them, frequently were the teachers in the primary schools.

From this cla.s.s arose most of those men so distinguished in her earlier history. Some were natives, and some were immigrants from other States, who sought a new field for their efforts, and where to make their future homes. Such were William H. Crawford, Abram Baldwin, and many others, whose names are now borne by the finest counties in the State--a monument to their virtues, talents, and public services, erected by a grateful people.

These primitive schools made the children of every neighborhood familiar to each other, and encouraged a h.o.m.ogeneous feeling in the rising population of the State. This sameness of education and of sentiment created a public opinion more efficacious in directing and controlling public morals than any statutory law, or its most efficient administration. It promoted an _esprit du corps_ throughout the country, and formed the basis of that chivalrous emprise so peculiarly Southern.

The recollections of these school-days are full of little incidents confirmatory of these views. I will relate one out of a thousand I might enumerate. A very pretty little girl of eight years, full of life and spirit, had incurred, by some act of childish mischief, the penalty of the switch--the only and universal means of correction in the country schools. She was the favorite of a lad of twelve, who sat looking on, and listening to the questions propounded to his sweetheart, and learning the decision of the teacher, which was announced thus: "Well, Mary, I must punish you."

All eyes were directed to William. Deliberately he laid down his books, and, stepping quickly up to the teacher, said, respectfully: "Don't strike her. Whip me. I'll take it for her," as he arrested with his hand the uplifted switch. Every eye in that little log school-house brightened with approbation, and, in a moment after, filled with tears, as the teacher laid down his rod and said: "William, you are a n.o.ble boy, and, for your sake, I will excuse Mary." Ten years after, Mary was the wife--the dutiful, loving, happy wife of William; and William, twenty years after, was a member of the Legislature, and then a representative in Congress, (when it was an honor to a gentleman to be such,) and afterwards was for years a Senator in the same body--one of Georgia's n.o.blest, proudest, and best men.

Can any one enumerate an instance where evil grew out of the early a.s.sociation of the s.e.xes at school? In the neighborhoods least populous, and where there were but few children, the pedagogue usually divided the year into as many parts as he had pupils, and boarded around with each family the number of days allotted to each child. If he was a man of family, the united strength of the neighborhood a.s.sembled upon a certain day, and built for him a residence contiguous to the school-house, which was erected in like manner.

These buildings were primitive indeed--consisting of poles cut from the forest, and, with no additional preparation, notched up into a square pen, and floored and covered with boards split from a forest-tree near at hand. It rarely required more than two days to complete the cabin--the second being appropriated to the chimney, and the c.h.i.n.king and daubing; that is, filling the interstices with billets of wood, and make these air-tight with clay thrown violently in, and smoothed over with the hand. Such buildings const.i.tuted nine-tenths of the homes of the entire country sixty years ago; and in such subst.i.tutes for houses were born the men who have moved the Senate with their eloquence, and added dignity and power to the bench of the Supreme Court of the nation, startled the world with their achievements upon the battle-field, and more than one of them has filled the Presidential chair.

Men born and reared under such circ.u.mstances, receive impressions which they carry through life, and their characters always discover the peculiarities incident to such birth and rearing--rough and vigorous, bold and daring, and n.o.bly independent, without polish or deceit, always sincere, and always honest.

However much the intellect may be cultivated in youth--however much it may be distinguished for great thoughts and wonderful attainments, still the peculiarities born of the forest cling about it in all its roughness--a fit setting to the unpolished diamond of the soul.

The rural pursuits of the country, and the necessities of the isolated condition of a pioneer population, which necessities are mainly supplied by ingenuity and perseverance on the part of each, creates an independence and self-reliance which enter largely into the formation of the general character. The inst.i.tution of African slavery existing in the South, which came with the very first, pioneer, and which was continually on the increase, added to this independence the habit of command; and this, too, became a part of Southern character. The absolute control of the slave, placed by habit and law in the will of the master, made it necessary to enact laws for the protection of the slave against the tyrannical cruelties found in some natures; but the public sentiment was in this, as in all other things, more potent than law. Their servile dependence forbade resistance to any cruelty which might be imposed; but it excited the general sympathy, and inspired, almost universally, a lenient humanity toward them.

They were mostly born members of the household, grew up with the children of each family, were companions and playmates, and naturally an attachment was formed, which is always stronger in the protecting than the protected party. It was a rare instance to find a master whose guardian protection did not extend with the same intensity and effect over his slave as over his child: this, not from any motive of pecuniary interest, but because he was estopped by law from self-defence; and, too, because of the attachment and the moral obligation on the master to protect his dependants. Besides, the community exacted it as a paramount duty. It is human to be attached to whatever it protects and controls; out of this feeling grows the spirit of true chivalry and of lofty intent--that magnanimity, manliness, and enn.o.bling pride which has so long characterized the gentlemen of the Southern States.

Caste, in society, may degrade, but, at the same time, it elevates.

Where this caste was distinguished by master and slave, the distinction was most marked, because there was no intermediate gradation. It was the highest and the lowest. It was between the highest and purest of the races of the human family, and the lowest and most degraded; and this relation was free from the debasing influences of caste in the same race. An improper appreciation of this fact has gone far to create with those unacquainted with negro character the prejudices against the inst.i.tution of African slavery, and which have culminated in its abolition in the Southern States.

The negro is incapacitated by nature from acquiring the high intelligence of the Caucasian. His sensibilities are extremely dull, his perceptive faculties dim, and the entire organization of his brain forbids and rejects the cultivation necessary to the elimination of mind. With a feeble moral organization, and entirely devoid of the higher attributes of mind and soul so prominent in the instincts of the Caucasian, his position was never, as a slave, oppressive to his mind or his sense of wrong. He felt, and to himself acknowledged his inferiority, and submitted with alacrity to the control of his superior. Under this control, his moral and intellectual cultivation elevated him: not simply to a higher position socially, but to a higher standard in the scale of being, and this was manifested to himself at the same time it demonstrated to him the natural truth of his inferiority. This gratified him, promoted his happiness, and he was contented. The same effect of the relation of master and servant can never follow when the race is the same, or even when the race is but one or two degrees inferior to the dominant one.

The influence of this relation upon the white race is marked in the peculiarities of character which distinguish the people of the South.

The habit of command, where implicit obedience is to follow, enn.o.bles.

The comparison is inevitable between the commander and him who obeys, and, in his estimation, unconsciously elevates and degrades. This between the white man and negro, is only felt by the white. The negro never dreams that he is degraded by this servility, and consequently he does not feel its oppression. He is incapable of aspiring, and manifests his pride and satisfaction by imitating his master as much as is possible to his nature. The white man is conscious of the effect upon the negro, and has no fear that he is inflicting a misery to be nursed in secret and sorrow, and to fill the negro's heart with hate.

This, however, is universally the effect of the domination of one man over another of the same race. The relation was for life, and the master was responsible for the moral and physical well-being of his slave. His entire dependence makes him an object of interest and care, and the very fact of this responsibility cultivates kindness and tenderness toward him. But this is not all; it carries with it a consciousness of superiority, and inspires a superior bearing. These influences are more potent in the formation of female than male character. The mistress is relieved absolutely from all menial duties, and is served by those who are servants for life, and compulsorily so.

She is only under the obligations of humanity in her conduct toward them. They must do her bidding. She is not afraid to offend by giving an order, nor is she apprehensive of being deserted to discharge her household labor herself by offending them. It is their duty to please--it is their interest--and this is the paramount desire. The intercourse is gentle, respectful, and kind; still, there is no infringement of the barrier between the mistress and the servant. This habit is the source of frankness and sincerity, and this release from the severity of domestic labor the fruitful source of female delicacy and refinement, so transcendently the attributes of character in the ladies of the South. It gives ease and time for improvement; for social and intellectual intercourse; creates habits of refinement, and a delicacy seen and heard in all that is done or said in refined female society in the South. Something, too, I suppose, is due to blood. There are many grades in the Caucasian race. The Anglo-Norman or Anglo-Celtic is certainly at the head. They rule wherever left to the conflict of mind and energy of soul. Sometimes they are conquered for a time, but never completely so. The great const.i.tuents of their natures continue to resist, and struggle up, and when the opportunity comes, they strike for control and supremacy--

"And freedom's battle, once begun, The cause bequeathed from sire to son, Though baffled oft, is ever won."

The Southern woman's soul is chivalry. From the highest to the humblest, the same lofty purpose, pride, and energy animate them. They have contrasted the free and n.o.ble with the mean and servile. Its magic has entered their natures and quickened their souls. In all there is a lofty scorn for the little and mean. The same withering contempt for the cringing and cowardly is met in every one of them. Their impulses are generous, and their aspirations n.o.ble, with hearts as soft and tender as love, pity, and compa.s.sion can form. Yet in them there is, too, the fire of chivalry, the scorn of contempt, and the daring of her who followed her immortal brother, the great Palafox, at the defence of Saragossa, her native city, and, standing upon the dead bodies of her countrymen, s.n.a.t.c.hed the burning match from the hand of death, and fired the cannon at the advancing foe, and planted Spain's standard, in defiance of the veterans of Soult--a rallying point for her countrymen--and saved Saragossa. They were born to command, and can never be slaves, or the mothers of slaves.

The same influences powerfully operate in producing that bearing of chivalrous distinction, which is seen everywhere in the deportment of the Southern gentlemen toward ladies. They are ever polite, respectful, and deferential. This, however, is only one of many elements in the peculiar character of Southern people. Their piety is Christian in its character. The precepts of the Bible are fashioned into example in the conduct of the older members of society, and especially in the female portion. This is, perhaps, the predominant element. The Bible is the guide, not the fashion, in religious duty. Its doctrines are taught in purity, and in their simplicity enter into the soul, as the great const.i.tuent of character.

The chivalrous bearing of man toward woman inspires her with elevated and n.o.ble sentiments--a pride and dignity conservative of purity in all her relations--and, reflecting these back upon society, producing most salutary influences. It is woman's pride to lean on man--to share his love and respect--to be elevated by his virtues, and appreciated by the world because of his honors--to be a part of his fame. The mother, the wife, the sister, the relative should share with the husband, the son, the brother, the kinsman, in the world's honors, in the sufferings, sorrows, and miseries incidental to all. They are part and parcel of man, and partake of his nature and his position, as of his fortune.

When man shall cease to view woman, and so deport himself toward her as a purer, more refined, and more elevated being than himself, that moment she will sink to his level, and then her prestige for good is gone forever. That delicacy, refinement, and chasteness, so restraining and so purifying to man in her a.s.sociation, is the soul of civilization--the salt of the earth. In its absence, no people are ever great; for, as it is the spirit of man's honor, so is it a nation's glory. It must be cherished, for it inspires man's honor by man's chivalry. Thus she becomes a people's strength; for their crown of glory is her chast.i.ty and angelic purity.

These virtues distinguished the pioneer women of Middle Georgia sixty years ago. As their husbands were honest and brave, they were chaste and pious; and from such a parentage sprang the men and women who have made a history for her pre-eminent among all her sister States. Her sons have peopled the West, and are distinguished there for their high honor and splendid abilities; and yet at home she boasts Toombs, Colt, Stephens, Hill, Johnson, Campbell, and a host of others, who are proud specimens among the proudest of the land. They have measured their strength with the proudest minds of all the Union, and won a fame unequalled, adorning her councils, its Cabinet, its Bench, and were the first everywhere.

George Michael Troup, one of the most distinguished of Georgia's sons, was the son of an English gentleman, who emigrated to Georgia anterior to the Revolution. He married Miss McIntosh, of Georgia, sister of General John McIntosh, of McIntosh County. He took no part in the Revolution. England was his mother country; to her he was attached, and in conscience he could not lift his hand in wrath against her. This course did not meet the approval of the McIntoshes, and he retired from the State and country. First, he went to England, but not contented there, he came to the Spanish town of Pensacola. Here he met the celebrated Indian chief, Alexander McGilvery, who was hostile to the Americans, and who invited him to take refuge in his country. McGilvery was a remarkable man; his father was a Scotchman, his mother a half-breed; her father was the celebrated French officer who was killed by his own men in 1732 at Fort Toulouse--his name was Marchand,--and her mother a full-blooded Creek woman.

McGilvery supposed him an English emissary, and invited him to go into the Creek nation and reside with his people. From Pensacola he went to Mobile, and thence to a bluff on the Tombigbee, where he remained during the war. This bluff he named McIntosh's Bluff, and it bears the name yet. Here George M. Troup was born. At the close of the war he returned to Georgia, and fixed his residence among the relatives of his wife. The McIntosh family were Highland Scotch, and partook of all the intrepidity of that wonderful people. They immigrated to Georgia with General Oglethorpe in company with a number of their countrymen, and for one hundred and thirty years have continued to reside in the county named for the first of their ancestors who settled and made a home in the colony of Georgia. It is a family distinguished for chivalry as well in Europe as in Georgia. At the commencement of the Revolution they at once sided with the colonists. Lachlin and John McIntosh became distinguished as leaders in that protracted and doubtful conflict, meeting in battle their kinsman in high command in the British army. On one occasion, when John McIntosh had surrendered at the battle of Brier Creek, a British officer, lost to every sentiment and feeling of honor, attempted to a.s.sa.s.sinate him, and was only prevented from doing so by Sir aeneas McIntosh, the commander of the English army, whose promptness arrested the blow by interposing his own sword to receive it.