The cause of Southern superiority.
Sallust; in his introduction to the History of the Conspiracy of Catiline, makes come very profound remarks upon the causes which, in the course of several centuries, had led to the establishment of the Roman authority over the greater portion of Europe, as then known to the world, and no small part of Asia. It could scarcely be, he says in substance, from superior national wisdom or valor, for the Greeks greatly surpassed the Romans in the first, and the Gable in the latter. He comes to the conclusion, finally, that it is owing to the number of great men who had succeeded each other in the conduct of affairs, and whose efforts had raised her, through regular gradations, from an insignificant city to the position of the ruling power of the world. Alison, adverting to the profound observations of the Roman historians, claims for the British Empire of Indian, established by the genius of China and supported in succession by the great abilities of Hastings and Wellesley, a similar history and a correspondent glory.To the same cause, we take it, is in a great structure to be attributed the superiority of the South to the North in the war which is now raging between the two sections. It cannot reduce to our numbers because they outnumber us two to one. It cannot be due to our superior wealth, for though we have among us the elements of wealth in survival profusion, they enured, before the war, far more to the benefit of the enemy than to our own. It is the wealth extracted from us, indeed, that they are indebted for everything that on them to carry on the war. It was our wealth that created their navy. It was our wealth that gave them boundless credit, and has enabled them to lavish fabulous sums upon their favorite project of subjugating it. I cannot be owing altogether to the superior sailor of our troops, although that has been conspicuous throughout the war, for the Yankees make good soldiers, and so far outnumber us that even inferior valor might be compensated by superior strength. But nothing can compensate the vast superiority of talent on our side. The Yankees have no General who is at all equal to even those officers who are not ranked higher than third rate with us. As for those of the first class, their whole military, put into one mass and boiled down, would not furnish an amalgam that could be compared to the most indifferent of them. How many Popes and McClellan would be take to make one Lee or Jackson?
This superiority of the Southern mind on the Northern was felt in the war of the Revolution and continued to be felt as long as the two sections constituted one people. The North felt it, if it did not acknowledge it, and experienced in the presence of the South the same uneasy feeling which Shakespeare makes Augustus confess that he felt in the presence of Auguste. The North was over-crowed by the South, and felt itself compelled to submit with however had a grace, to a superiority implanted by nature itself, and not to be over . It was the presence of the South in the grand council of the country that kept together the elements of the Government. Assault as it withdrew, it became palpable to the World that the North was utterly incapable of old government. Liberty was overturned in a twinkling. The Constitution was trampled under feet as an obsolete set of laws, no longer binding upon anybody. A demand, who tone and language relieved him of the suspicion of even pretending to be a gentleman, seized the supreme power. What had been a Congress made haste to lay their independence at his feet. The whole Yankee taken the use a phrase of Therins) rushed as slavery. Sevility supplied the place of every virtue. The Jeffersonian test, be capable. to be Will be obey the behests of the question or demur," was now necessary to find out. The presented a deplorable spectacle. The members fell fond of each other with a of abuse which, to use the language of editor showed plainly that they were no longer restrained by the fear of the Southern horsewhip. In great and honorable contrast have been the proceedings of the Confederate Congress, where the utmost tude of discussion is allowed, without ing this far elicited a single discourteous ark, or a single expression to which a could take personal exception. Such as the difference between gentlemen who are ally such, and gentlemen who are thus designated by courtesy and the rules of the House.
We cannot bring our mind for a moment to believe that the Yankees will ever be able to conduct the affairs of their Government any better than they are now doing. The Yankee is a degenerate Puritan — the lineal descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims, with all their trail of avarice, hypocrisy, and coming, intensified by transmission. The Puritans, we all know, had supreme away in England, and what was the result? Why, they created such a mortal horror of themselves and their Government that the nation welcomed back Charles H, and submitted to his profligate reign for twenty-five years, rather than continue to bear their yoke. To them England is indebted for the whole infantry of that people, the most disgraceful in her annals. To them it was owing that the very name of Republic is hateful to English ears, even unto this day, for they called their Government a Commonwealth. The great talents of Cromwell, who usurped the power which he found them abusing, were not able to eradicate, or even to diminish, the intense hatred of the Puritan name. England has never tried them since. She got enough of them at a dose, and she cannot be tempted to a repetition. They will succeed no better here. They have not the governing qualities, and would long since have fallen into anarchy but for the Southern conservative element which is now removed.
