The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet ItHelper, Hinton Rowan
History
The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It
Helper, Hinton Rowan
Slavery -- United States
Not long since, a slavocrat, writing on this subject, said,
apologetically, "we frankly admit that slavery is a monstrous evil; but
what are we to do with an institution which has baffled the wisdom of our
greatest statesmen?" Unfortunately for the South, since the days of
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and their illustrious compatriots, she has
never had more than half a dozen statesmen, all told; of mere politicians,
wire-pullers, and slave-driving demagogues, she has had enough, and to
spare; but of statesmen, in the true sense of the term, she has had, and
now has, but precious few--fewer just at this time, perhaps, than ever
before. It is far from a matter of surprise to us that slavery has, for
such a long period, baffled the "wisdom" of the oligarchy; but our
surprise is destined to culminate in amazement, if the wisdom of the
non-slaveholders does not soon baffle slavery.
From the eleventh year previous to the close of the eighteenth century
down to the present moment, slaveholders and slave-breeders, who, to speak
naked truth, are, as a general thing, unfit to occupy any honorable
station in life, have, by chicanery and usurpation, wielded all the
official power of the South; and, excepting the patriotic services of the
noble abolitionists above-mentioned, the sole aim and drift of their
legislation has been to aggrandize themselves, to strengthen slavery, and
to keep the poor whites, the constitutional majority, bowed down in the
deepest depths of degradation. We propose to subvert this entire system of
oligarchal despotism. We think there should be _some_ legislation for
decent white men, not alone for negroes and slaveholders. Slavery lies at
the root of all the shame, poverty, ignorance, tyranny and imbecility of
the South; slavery must be thoroughly eradicated; let this be done, and a
glorious future will await us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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