H<\
CHEKOKEE BAPTIST «
Delivered at the Commencement on the 14th July, 1858,
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Hon. WILLIAM H. STILES.
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the
SAVANNAH: er
POWER PRESS OF GEORGE N. NICHOLS
Corner of Bay and Drayton Streets—Up Stairs.
185 8. dr
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EZSlHEigiliSS
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SOUTHERN EDUCATION FOR SOUTHERN YOUTH.
-A.HST
BEFORE THE
.yWa ¥|i lelta Sacidti
OF THE
CHEROKEE BAPTIST COLLEGE,
Delivered at the Commencement on the 14th July, 1858,
Hon. WILLIAM H. STILES.
SAVANNAH:
powe!r press or george n. nichols,
Corner of Bay and Drayton Streets—Up Stairs.
1858.
CO^IELIESIPOilSriDElsrCIE-
— naomoqwfc' -
Hon. W. H. Stiles,
Dear Sir;—The undersigned Committee would respectfully
return the thanks of the Alphi Pi Delta Society, for the able
and appropriate Address delivered by you before that body to-day,
and would request a copy of the same for publication.
Respectfully, &c.,
J. H. ANDERSON,
E. S. CANDLER,
T. J. WILKES,
Cassville, July 14,th, 1858. Committee.
iq ><oOea»<""0' I.
ETOWAH CLIFFS, CASS COUNTY, )
* Jvly 16/A, 1858. j
Gentlemen Ipi obedience to custom so general, that it would
1 o
appear affectation to violate, I yield to your disposal a copy of the
Address you so kindly solicit.
Will you tender the Society, my acknowledgments for the compli¬
ment conveyed in the request, and believe me to be with much
respect, your friend,
, WILLIAM IL STILES.
^Messrs. J. H. Anderson, E. S. Candler, and T. J. Wilkes,
Committed^
Gentlemen of the Alpha Pi Delta Society:
Not twenty years ago, the spot where we now meet, surrounded
by all the evidences of an advanced civilization, was the dwelling
place of the savage. When over the rich valleys that now teem
with industry, as well as the barren hills that yield their treasures
to the hand of enterprise, the Indian held undisputed sway and made
his home and his grave where •there lived not a "pale man" to claim
the one or disturb the other. But now, how changed the scene %
The wilderness, then marked only by the lair of the wild beast, now
blooms with thriving villages. The fertile soil which then wasted
its strength in rank luxuriance, now yields the products that form the
commerce of the world, and the streams which then rolled their
idle waters to the sea, now render tribute to all the demands of
varied manufacture. So rapidly has civilization pressed upon the
retreating footsteps of barbarism, that one may, as he is whirled
along with the lightning speed of the Rail car, still trace, through
the unbroken forests, those narrow trails, the highway of the "red-
man," and which neither nature or art has yet been able entirely to
efface.
But the most rapid as well as the most important change, not
only physical but moral, not only for time but for eternity, is that
we this day witness—instead of the rude wigwam of the savage,
the abode of idolatry and ignorance, there rises before us, a fitting
temple devoted to literature and science and dedicated to the service
of the " ever living and true God. "
*
Not only are the circumstances under which we are assembled
peculiar, but the times in which we meet, so far at least as respects
the political condition of our country, interesting in the extreme.
There was a period in the earlier stages of our government, when no
sectional animosities divided the people of this wide-Spread union, i
when there were no institutions peculiar to one section ^hich did
not exist in another, when Southern youth could wiftv impunity be
committed for instruction to Northern mind, and wjjen under the
sacred and inviolate charter of our liberties, we dwelt together
without distinction of locality, in harmony and peace.
But mark now the contrast. Sectional' divisions, agitate our
country to its centre. An institution once universal ia now abolished
4
toy one section and retained by another. This circumstance alone has
converted fraternal friendship into deadly hostility. The Constitution
disregarded and annulled has been supplanted by " Higher Law,
and the former union and harmony seems ready to give fl>laoe at
any moment to dissolution and war.
To these circumstances, under which we are assembled, and to
the condition of these times under which we meet, am I indebted
for the subject on which I propose to address you on the present
occasion. In view of the ability and promptness of the South, to
plant the flag staff of a refined civilization upon the soil of barbar¬
ism, together with the present unfitness of the North to continue
longer the instruction of Southern youth, what subject of thought
can be more appropriate than that of the Educational Independence
of the South.
Independence! How much is embraced in that single word 1
At its bare announcement what a succession of stirring thoughts
crowd upon the mind t First a thraldom, severe, galling, and at
length insupportable, next a resistance, struggle, deadly conflict, and
at last success, triumph, deliverance. What American can listen to
that word and not feel almost the pains of the u Stamp Act,11 the
" Tea Tax, " and " Transportation for Trial,11 hear almost, the can¬
non of Bunker Hill, of Saratoga, and ofYorktown, and nee almost
our much loved country as she rises, dashes from her neck the yoke
of colonial servitude, and takes her place among the nations of the
earth, free, sovereign and independent.
Nothing certainly can be more trying to the sensibilities of en¬
lightened man, than thraldom of any kind, and yet it is an evil, which
under varied forms, the sensitive and chivalric South has for more
than a quarter of a century almost patiently endured. In commerce,
in finance, as well as in literature, the South, while possessing all
the requisites Tto render her superior, has, during that period,
occupied a position of comparative vasalage to the North. It is a
fact as peculiar as it is mortifying, that the Southern States, while
^producing nearly three-fourths of the exports of the country,
■Emong these the article which furnishes the basis of the world's
trade, has not only lost the supremacy which it formerly and right-
• fully possessed but has become commercially a dependent upon and
yet a tributary to, that section which produces the smallest portion
of these exports. .Restive under the exactions incident to their
anomalous condition, intelligent and patriotic citizens of the South
have for .more than twenty years met periodically, and of late
annually, in convention in search of some remedy for so insupport-
5
able an evil. But these efforts from a want 6f concert have thus
far proved unavailing. Not only has there been no approxima¬
tion towards relief but in the last convention, held but a few
months since, in an adjoining State, unanimity of sentiment, the
first object of such assemblies, seemed more distant than ever, and
so disheartening, it is believed, were its results as to render it
improbable that another similar convention will ever be held. And
why, it may not be unprofitable to enquire, have these efforts of
our most patriotic as well as most intelligent citizens been hitherto
barren of results ? We have as clearly the ability to right ourselves
as we have unquestionably the desire to effect that object, why th< n
have we not succeeded 1 The immediate cause of a failure it will
readily be admitted is a want of unanimity in sentiment; concei t
in action must be preceded by unanimity in sentiment. Without
pressing farther an enquiry not strictly relavent to the subje< t
under consideration, we may ask what is so likely to produe,-
unanimity in sentiment, in other words one and the same mind ui
one and the same education? Have we not been striving to relieve
ourselves of an effect without first removing the cause? Before w •
can expect to become independent of the North in commerce an<:
in finance, must we not make ourselves independent in education !
Dependent for education, for intelligence, for light! Dependent
for knowledge—knowledge of good and evil—knowledge of right
and wrong! What vassalage can be more humiliating and disas¬
trous than that of mind? No! Let cupidity seize my interests,
whether commercial or financial; let it unreservedly appropriate
them all ; but let it leave me a mind free, free if not to prevent,
free at least to perceive the fraud and condemn the act. Indepen¬
dence in every way commercial, financial, literary, are all desirable;
but that which in importance far exceeds them all, which is more
indissolubly blended with our highest interest and to which every
true Southern heart should be unalterably directed, is independence
in the education of our youth.
In the investigation of this subject, the first and most important
enquiry which presents itself is, is it necessary ? And in an effort
to establish the affirmative of this proposition I shall occupy the
residue of my allotted hour. In support of a Southern education
for Southern youth there are some considerations of an important
and weighty character, but which as they regard rather the
expediency than the necessity of the measure, I shall not permit
them to occupy more of your attention than a bare recital may
involve. Prominent among this class of considerations are—1st.
()
The vast sums paid bv the- South to the North for books and
education and which have been estimated at nearly Ave millions of
dollars annually. 2nd. The great injury to the South which must
result from ho large and constant a drain on her resources; or in
another view the substantial improvement to our section which the
expenditure of that amount annually in our midst would not tail
to produce. 3d. The tacit but humiliating acknowledgement of
our own intellectual inferiority, as manifested in our inability to
discharge the most important and sacred duty of life—the instruc¬
tion and improvement of our own offspring.
But there are other considerations involved in this question, by
the side of which, those of mere expediency dwindle into insignif¬
icance, and which render Southern education for Southern youth
mcexmry even in the strict Latin derivation of the term not to be
departed from., because inseparable from the prosperity, the honor
and the very existence of the South.
Under this head the first proposition I advance, and it is one the
mere statement of which is sufficient to challenge universal acknowl¬
edgement, is that every system of education to be successful must
he adapted to the institutions, habits and convictions of the people.
For a striking illustration of the correctness of this position, I need
only refer you, young gentlemen, to the history of the two rival
pities of ancient Greece and with which your recent study of the
classics must render you familiar.
jLthens and Sparta were located as you know in the same country
in nearly the same lititude, and not one hundred miles apart, and
vet nothing could have been more dissimilar than their respective
sj stems of education, and by legitimate consequence, the character
of their respective citizens. The education of the one was almost
entirely physical, that of the other almost entirely Intellectual. The
object of onp system was to teach the youth in all the arts of war,
the object of the other to instruct him in all the arts of peace. The
object of on,e liyas to teach him how to live, the object of the other
to instruct liHu how to die. The object of the one was to teach the
youth to die while he lived, die as did Demosthenes, in his cave, die
at least to the world of sensual pleasure. The object of the other
was to- instruct him t<j live while he died, live as did Leonidas after
Thermopylae, live by passing in a single action from the oblivion of
death, to the distinction of immortal life.
'_,In Sparta, under the constitution of Lycurgus, every male c,hild
.after passing tfye necessary examination at its birth, was presented
to the "world, 4yhig upon a shield, bearing the inscription " either
7
with this or upon this, "" and the simple ceremony M as typical of
his entire life, ft denoted his profession to he that of arms, the
object of his life victory or death. At the age of seven the child
was withdrawn from the paternal care and educated under the
public eye. From that age to his eighteenth year he was called a
boy, from his eighteenth until he reached his thirtieth he was known
as a youth, and at the latter period onh entered upon the duties
and privileges of manhood. His whole education, which thus em¬
braced a period of thirty years, consisted of a course of instruction
in military exercises, dancing and gymnastics. To inure him to
hardships, the youth was allowed but little food, slept on beds of
rushes, exercised in a state of nudity, and when too fat subjected to
flogging. Whoever uttered the least en during the scourging,
which was so severe as sometimes to prove fatal, was considered as
disgraced, while tie who bore it without shrinking, was crowned and
received the praises of the whole city. All learning was regarded
with contempt and excluded from the education of youth, and even
in manhood many were prohibited from the exercise of mechanic
arts, in order that they might have more time to devote to martial
pursuits. In short the whole education of the Spartan consisted in
learning obedience to superiors, endurance of hardships, and how to
conquer or die in battle.
How different was education at Athens ? There all martial
exercises and that severe and constant training to accustom youth to
the endurance of hardship were unknown. As soon as he -was
capable of receiving instruction, the young Athenian was committed
to the care of competent and different masters, in order to be taught
the rudiments of learning and a knowledge <>f the lower sciences.
As he advanced in life, his studies became gradually deeper and
more difficult, until at length his profession being determined by
the taste or capacity of the pupil, he was committed to the* most
experienced masters to lie perfected either in philosophy, poetry,
eloquence or art. Nor was the education of Athenian youth con¬
fined to the instruction of masters. As the populace i>f Athens
surpassed in intelligence the lower orders of any community that
ever existed, as they spent almost their entire time in .the streets
and public places, by far the larger portion of the improvement of
youth was derived from association and the ennobling occupations
and amusements of the age. Let us follow an Athenian through
the lessons of a day. Starting out in the morning and repairing to
the " groves of the Academy, " the youth is instructed by„a lecture
from Plato, as he discourses upon the two " primary and incorrupti-
8
ble princibles" " God and matter." A little later in the day
joining in the crowd which is hurrying to the Prytaneum, he receives
a lesson in oratory from Pericles, the most accomplished speaker
of Athens, as he mounts the Bema, and with glowing eloquence
advocates the Peloponesian war. Reparing, as was the habit of
the people, about noon, to the Agora, the young Athenian gathers
wisdom from the lips of Socrates as he discusses the existence of
the Diety with Georgias of Leontium, and conducts the learned
sophist through a most withering conference. In the afternoon,
resorting to the theatre, (which under the decree of Pericles ; any
one might do at the public expense,) his imagination is cultivated
and his taste refined, as he witnesses the performance of the CEdipus,
the master-piece of Sophocles. And at sun-set, mounting to the
summit of the Acropolis, he is taught the principles of both Archi¬
tecture and Sculpture, as he gazes upon Phidias placing his last
statue upon the frieze of the just finished and still standing Par¬
thenon.
How would the rude and hardy training of the Spartan youth
have fitted him for life among the cultivated and refined Athenians ?
Or how on the other hand, would the purely intellectual education
t>f tha-young Athenian have rendered him any better suited to the
rough camp-life of the Spartan"? Would we not have regarded it
as an act of consumate folly, had we seen the Spartan father sending
his 6on for education to Athens, or on the other hand, the Athenian
parent despatching his offspring to Sparta for a like object? It is
pvident the foreign education of either would have been a failure
and worse than a failure, ruinous. And why ? because in the
language of my proposition, the foreign education which either
youth might receive, would not have been adapted to the institu¬
tions, the habits and the convictions of their own people.
The institutions of the South and those of the North differ as
widely, agreeably at least to the opinions of the latter, as ever did
those of Athens and Sparta. The institutions of the one are based
upon slavery, the institutions of the other are based upon what they are
pleased to call freedom. One section is unalterably identified with
slave institutions, slave property and slave labor, the other equally
identified with free sooiety, free labor and even free love. The
people of the South believe that the prosperity and existence of
our Union depend Upon the maintenance of that institution—the
people of the North believe that the prosperity and existence of the
Union depend upon its destruction. But the inhabitants of the two
cities 9f Greece never committed the folly of subjecting their youth
9
to the instruction of a rival—and shall we, with all the light of the
nineteenth century, and all the experience which more than two
thousand years can furnish, be guilty of such palpable fatuity 1
Besides, there is still another view in which the folly of the South
is infinitely more glaring. There never existed, so far as history
informs us, at Athens or Sparta, that deadly animosity against the
institutions of the other, as at this day actuates the North against
the institutions of the South. While the injury consequently to the
Athenian or Spartan from a foreign education, would be confined to
the youths themselves, in unfitting them for participation in their
native institutions, the injury to Southern youth from a Northern
education would not only unfit them for their native institutions,
but at the same time implant in them a deadly hostility to the
institution which nothing but its destruction could possibly appease.
But to form a more just comprehension of the evils under which
we labor, look for a moment at the practical operation of the system.
In the first place, at that most interesting but dangerous period of
life, when the principles are still unformed, and the judgement
immature, when the mind is most active and the heart most im-
pressable, when in fact the youth is little more than clay in the
hands of the potter to be moulded at will "into a vessel of honor
or dishonor," at that tender period he is removed from the parental
roof and all the salutary influences of home, and placed under the
instruction and subject to the control of those who believe slavery
to be semper et ubique " a moral wrong, a violation of the obliga¬
tions we are under to our fellow-men and a transgression of* the
laws of our Creator."
Is it thought that this remark is too general; where, I ask, is the
exception % Where is. the institution north of Mason & Dixon's
line, where these opinions are not entertained 1 Willit be said
that though the Professors in Northern colleges do entertain
these opinions, they feel no interest in their dissemination, and will
not, conseqently, attempt to influence their pupils ? Abolitionists
no interest in the dissemination of their opinions! How then is it
that a sect which only twenty years ago was so insignificant as to
be beneath contempt, should at the last Presidential election' have
nearly reached a majority of the voters in the Union"? Northern
Professors not attempt to influence their pupils! Look to Yale and
Harvard, the two largest and most thriving institutions of the North,
and to which nine-tenths of the Southern youths are sent. They
that in times past have been looked to as great conservators' of the
peace and harmony of this confederacy. Do they now stand up as
B
10
formerly, great beacons on an eminence, operating as a guide to
the friends, but a terror to the enemies of the constitution and the
country { No! Fired by fanaticism, they have expanded into lu¬
minaries, and now shed their light, and heat, and baneful influence
over the mind and literature of the entire North, W itness the
disgraceful spectacle of a distinguished professor in one of these
institutions, whose creed, if not his calling, should have taught him
"peace on earth and good will to men,11 sending forth assassins to
our territories, placing arms in their hands, and appealing to them
by all they hold most sacred to be diligent in using them. Ah!
j;nd against whom ! Those who have trampled under foot the laws
and constitution of the laud ? Those whom all good men pronounce
traitors and out-laws? No! but against those who have always
been most noted for their zealous obedience to Jaw. AVho have
freely offered up more than their just proportion of blood and
treasure in defence of the rights and honor of the whole country.
And is the other institution in the least degree more conservative i
Harvard, whose faculty has recently deposed their best law profes¬
sor, a distinguished judge for no other cause than that of his honest
and manly discharge of duty under the fngitive slave law, while
they have selected as an examiner of the classes in political econo¬
my, that individual whom nothing has raised above the obscurity to
which his merits entitle him, but his blasphemous expression upon
the' floor of Congress that "the times demand an anti-slavery consti¬
tution, an anti slavery Bible, and anti-slavery God.''''
Are, Southern youths safe under the guidance of such instructors I
But the evil is not confined to the influence of abolition instruc¬
tors. Their collegiate course embraces a series of abolition text¬
books all breathing the most violent hostility to our institutions, and
conveying the most unjust and invidious comparisons against the
South, as lessons to be learned and gloried in by Southern youth.
The prevailing characteristic of all books of instruction at the
North, even from the primmers ornamented with pictures of slaves
under the lash, through the sickly sentimentalism of their ''Class-
Leaders'1 and "National Orators*1 up to the higher law reasoning of
'' Wayland's Moral Science,'1"' is a constant effort to impress the
mind with the sinfulness and degrading tendency of slavery, and
the responsibility of all citizens, whether at the North or the South,
11 its existence. Is this, the kind of knowledge we desire Southern
youth to acquire, and which we incur the expense of sending them
a thousand miles to obtain 1
Nor do the objections to Northern institution* end with abolition
11
instrution and abolition text-books, but applies with equal force to
all the intercourse and association of youth. The whole moral at¬
mosphere in the vicinity of these Northern institutions is so highly
impregnated as to render it impossible for a student to breathe
it without inhaling abolition at every breath. He not only acquires
it from his studies, but he iinbides it from the pages of every periodi¬
cal or the columns of every journal which in his hours of recrea¬
tion he may chance to take up. Tie not only hears it discussed
every day in the week by all classes and at all hours, but as if there
were 110 uday of rest" for this woruout and iully exhausted topic,
he receives it again 011 the Sabbath from the sacred desk which has
been prostituted to its uuholv purposes. In short the contracted
hold of a slave-ship upon which these philanthropists are so pleased
to discant can not be more rnephitie than is the whole moral atmos¬
phere of New-England with the putrescence of this long dead but,
still unburied subject.' In an atmosphore composed so much of
azote and so little of oxygen as to be unable to sustain life, how is it
to be expected that a Southern youth exposed to it can survive with¬
out inhaling seeds of moral corruption and decay I
Trace the youth in his progress to manhood. The»idol of his
parents and the embodiment of their hopes, he, is the cherished
object of all those bright, and lofty anticipations which parental
affection when combined with selfish vanity can alone create. His
father impressed with a belief in the utter inefficiency of Southern
colleges to afford a full and complete education, and persuaded at
the same time, from the talents of his son, that could he but enjoy
the superior advantages oflered by the great Northern universities,
he would not fail to succeed in life and attain d(.'served eminence,
he resolves upon the step, and the youth as full of ardor as he is
deficient in experience, leaves home, for the. first time in his Jife.
bound for one of the renowned institutions of the North, lie
enters the university. Frank and unsuspecting as virtuous youth
ever is, but a short time is suffered to elapse before he is entrapped
into a discussion of the "horrible institution ^ of his native South.
Never having heard the propriety of slavery questioned, he. is
unprepared to defend it even against those stereotyped yet falla¬
cious arguments drawn from the "■Declaration of Independence '
and the "Golden Iiule/1 which constitute so large a portion of
the abolition armory. Wanting, from.his tender years, in those
powers of discrimination which would enable him to detect the
fallacious positions, ingenious sophisms and illogical conclusions of
his adversaries, one by one his intellectual batteries are silenced,
12
until at length his ammunition exhausted, his last shot in the locker
discharged, he stikes his colors and surrenders at discretion. These
erroneous opinions, universally approved by the association around
him, become most naturally confirmed. The ardor of his temper
ament will not suffer him to be merely a silent supporter of
doctrines which he now believes to be true, and the recent convert
becomes a zealous disciple; following the sect in all their wander¬
ings, he stops not in his downward coarse, until he reaches that
goal at which all sooner or later arrive—a "disbelief in the truth of
the bible and the existence of the Deity. Having perfected him in
education, his Alum Mater, that truly "cherishing, nourishing,
fostering " mother, restores him to his paternal roof. Is he fitted
by his Northern education for those duties social, private and public,
which in the land of his nativity he would ordinarily be called on
to perform 1
The cordial greetings upon his return are scarcely over, when
this recent graduate of a Northern university commences his
important mission of reform, for which he feels himself so admira¬
bly prepared. He begins by an attempt to teach his father his
duties as a man, and the first and most important of them, he
contends, is to emancipate his slaves. Taught a contempt for the
entire decalogue on account of its acknowledgment of the existence
and propriety of slavery, he has of course but little reverence fbr
that particular command " Honor thy father and thy mother;" he
regards his parents as " abominable sinners," and they look upon
him as a crazy fanatic. And now when all mutual affection and
respect is gone, when upon a subject of importance such violent
hostility of opinion exists, and when from relationship they are
brought into immediate and never-ending contact, it requires but
little effort of the imagination to conceive that that family circle,
which once frpm the peace, love and happiness of its members,
resembled a Paradise on Earth, has now by this well intended but
ill-judged step of a Northern education for a Southern youth#
become little short of a perfect Pandemonium
If not fitted for his social duties, is he any better prepared for
the duties which devolve upon him as a private citizen ?
Will he enter upon a profession 1 Shall it be the Ministry ?
For the Holy calling, he would clearly be unfitted at the South.
He does not believe in the authenticity of the Scriptures, and how
admirably soever, such Atheistical opinions may accord with the
Transcendentalism of New England, they would not suit the South
whose people are still so far behind the age as to believe the Bible
13
to be "in truth the word of God.1' Will he undertake the profes¬
sion of the law ? For this his opinions equally disqualify him at
the South. He has been taught to believe, in fact it is the founda¬
tion of his creed, that "man cannot hold property in man,'1 he would
assuredly then be unfitted for the practice of the profession, among
a population, the half of whose wealth consists in that species of
property. Is he, in short, prepared for the performance of that
plainest and most obvious duty of every private no less than public
citizen, obedience to the constitution of his country? For this even
is he wholly unfitted, at the South, on account of his belief in the
existence and supremacy of a " higher law.11
If not prepared for the duties of a, private citizen, is he fitted by
his Northern education, for the duties which may be required of
him, by the. South, as a •public man?
The time is approaching, nay is already at hand, when the injured
and constantly assailed South will need the aid of all her sons, but
especially those of educated and disciplined intellects, to vindicate
her peculiar institutions, not only before our Federal councils, but
in the judgment of the world. We are in the midst of a mighty
revolution. You startle at the announcement. Such incredulity
is a national characteristic. Welook around, and as we behold
no blood or arms, no destruction or chaos, we are unable to,
realize the existence of revolution. Our fathers were half through
the revolution which led to a separation of the Colonies from the
mother country, before aware that it had commenced. This is but
the result of erroneous views of the nature of revolution. We are
apt, in our hasty view to confound revolution with sudden and
violent convulsion accompanied by war and bloodshed, and forged}
that this mighty change is but the effect of education and habit, ;md
is in its operation as silent as death and as ceaseless as eternity.
In the American Revolution, when "Writs of Assistance"' ap¬
peared, those first fruits of a determination on the part "of England
to lax America, our fathers only thought they were-annoying and
oppressive, and resolved upon resistance. Ilere, in the South, we
too have been annoyed and oppressed by Tariffs itnd other acts of
partial legislation, and once and again have we resolved upon re¬
sistance, but this we have never regarded as revolution. In the
American Revolution, after the " Writs of Assistance, " a few years
roll by and then follow the "Stamp Act, " and " Tea Tax, " and
our fathers take the ominous step of convening the delegates of the
colonies, to consider how their rights and liberties can be sustained.
Here at the South, after the Tariff and other oppressive acts, a few
14
years elapse, and in 1850, laws are passed prohibiting the South
from the enjoyment of territory, purchased with its own blood
and treasure, the Fugitive Slave Act is annulled and thousands of
our slaves whose value exceeded an hundred fold the avails of the
Stamp Act and Tea Tax combined, are irrecoverably lost. We
take the ominous step of convening the delegates of the Southern
States, to consider how our rights and liberties can be sustained,
but this by no one is considered revolution. In the American
Revolution in 1771, Dr. Franklin declared that the seeds of disunion
were being sown, the people were incited to emulate the courage
and faith of their fathers, who had, it was said, u made a settlement
on bare creation11 while all resistance they contended was to be
conducted " under the shield of the British Constitution and in
strict adherence to their charters." Here in the South, it has of
late j ears been repeatedly declared, that the seeds of disunion were
being sown, the people incited to emulate the faith and courage of
their fathers, who u in the cause of principle had breasted the whole
power "of England,11 while all resistance, they contend, is to be
"conducted under the shield of the American Constitution, and in
strict adherence to its principles,1"1 and yet this has never for a
moment been thought revolution. But exclaims the still incredu¬
lous, the only cause of difference .between the Soiith and the North
rests upon a mere dogma, the right of the colored race to equality
in the Union, mid surely we -will not go into a fight with our own
brethren upon a mere dogma ! Recollect that the only cause of
difference between the colonies and the mother country when hos"
tilities commenced, was ,m mere preamble, the body of the obnoxious
nets had been repealed and nothing of those statutes left but the
preamble or dogma, that England had the right to tax the colonies
andhenc-p it is literally true that our mcestors did go into the fight
against not their brothers lint w hat was still worse their father*f,
and did fight through the seven \ears war of the revolution upon a
mere do^ma.
As this dogma to which reference has been made embraces 1 he issue
that no\y divides the North and the South, an issue which involves
the cvistt nee of our («ovemment, and as upon a thorough knowledge
of this question will depend a Southern youth's ability to serve his
country, as well as a large portion of his duties as a public man,
I have thought that a limited discussion of the topic would be
neither irrevalent or unprofitable on the present occasion.
The North pronounces slavery a sin and a curse, and contends
that wherever it exists it is evidence of a limited civilization, debased
15
morals and disastrous national interests. Is this judgment cor¬
rect 'I
Slavery, as history informs us, is coeval with the origin of Society.
In the very first book of the sacred Scriptures, it will be found that
shortly after the deluge, there appears a decree of the Almighty
(through the lips of Noah) dooming the defendants of Ham to
perpetual servitude. A few generations later, in the same inspired
record, slavery is referred to as a well established institution, even
the " father of the faithful" being the owner of more than three
hundred slaves. In the second book of the bible, in the command¬
ments given by God to Moses, is one having especial reference to
the institution. But the third book is still more explicit. From the
very lips of Omnipotence it is declared "Both thy bond-men and
thy bond-maids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that
are round about you, of them shall _ ye buy bond-men and bond¬
maids." And ye shall take them for an inheritance for your
children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be
your bond-men forever."
But to pursue the history of the institution chronologically, He.
rodotus, the ''father of history," states that among the earliest
nations captives were always considered slaves. And in the times
of Homer (who must have existed at least 500 years before Hero¬
dotus,) we find that the wrath of Achilles, the theme of his Il'ad,
was a quarrel about a slave, while Ulysses in the Odyssey relates
his escape from a Phoenician who had doomed him to Lybian slavery.
That the early Egytians held slaves, we learn not only from the
purchase of Joseph by Potiphar, but from their monuments of the
remotest antiquity. They sold slaves to the Syrians and Carthf.-
genians. The Arabs of the desert have always been served by
slaves. The Guinea coast supplied their market hundreds of years
before the Portugese embarked in the traffic. In the palmiest days
of Greece, the number of slaves in Athens, was computed to be
400,000. The slave population was to the free population in the
proportion of four to one. In Sparta the proportion of slaves was
still greater—and in fact the Spartans oflen-timos butchered them,
when by reason of their numbers they were likely-to become
dangerous. The numbeij' of slaves in the Roman Empire when
Christ and his Apostles appeared in one of its provinces, was esti¬
mated at forty millions. Single individuals held as many as
«20 000, and the right over this vast multitude was that of life and
death. Fabius, the model, so called, of our own Washington, sold
30,000 citizens of Tarentum to the highest bidder, and Julius Cassar,
16
their most distinguished soldier, disposed in like manner of 53,000.
Lucullus could only obtain for his Asiatic slaves the sum of 65 cents
a piece. To descend the stream of time, after the Norman conquest*
slaves were exported from England into Ireland. The Germans
carried on the trade on the Baltic. The Russians supplied Con¬
stantinople. The Jews purchased in France for the Saracens, and
the Venetians bought at Rome for the Arabs of Spain and Sicily.
About a century before the discovery of America, the Portuguese
commenced what is known as the African slave trade, and soon the
Spaniards vied with them in the traffic. On the discovery of
America some change took place in the trade, when native Indians
were imported into Spain as slaves. .Even the great discoverer
sent 500 such slaves to be sold at Seville on joint account with his
royal master. And if this conduct of Columbus is revolting, what
will be our feelings when we reflect that our own New Englanders,
(the ancestors of those very individuals whose sublime morality at
this day can not bear the abstract contemplation of slavery at the
distance of a thousand miles,) were in the habit of selling the
poor Pequods and Annawons into perpetual slaver}. One of the
earliest and best Governors of Massachusetts, as Mr. Bancroft,
(himself a New Englander) informs us, "enumerates Indians among
his bequests."
At this period all the great nations of the world participated in
the trafic of African slaves. Queen Elizabeth of England was so
delighted with the success of her distinguished Naval commander
Sir John Hawkins, whom she commissioned to carry on the trade,
that she became a part-owner in his monopoly, sharing his gains
and protecting him in his worst enterprises. Nor was slavery at
that time in England confined to blacks. The Scotts taken in battle
on the field of Dunbar, the Royalist prisoners at the battle of Wor-
^6ster, and the Catholics of Ireland, were sold under the hammer
as well in this country as in England. Even as late as the times
of James II., Jeffries, his notorious Judge, in a letter to his Majesty,
computes the value of these slaves at from ten to fifteen pounds
apiece.
In France, Louis XIII. about the same time establishes slavery in
all his American colonies, while there existed at home a species of
white slavery which was not abolished until 1779, or three years
after our Declaration of Independence. Spain, at this period the
most powerful nation of Europe, excelled them all in the prosecu¬
tion of this trafic. She not only engaged in it to the extent of her
commercial marine, but undertook to employ other nations and
17
people in the traffic for the supply of her American colonies. A
short time prior to 1713, she had formed such a contract with a
Company in France called the " Royal Guinea Company" and it is"■
a notorious fact, that at the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Great Britain
through the skill of her Diplomatists, obtained a transfer of that
contract. She yielded, as history tells us, considerations for it, one
of which doubtless was, that Phillip Y. the Spanish Monarch at
that time, should share with Queen Anne, then Sovereign of England
one-half the profits of the trade, while the other half was divided
between their respective favorites. It is worthy of notice too, that
at one time or another, with the exception of the Roman Pontiff,
every Christian Potentate and Government has sanctioned the slave
trade between Africa and America. And not only sovereigns but
subjects over the civilized world participated in the traffic. In
supplying the English colonies of North America, Old and 5frew
England were the principal instruments. Massachusetts was the
first of the United States to engage directly in the slave trade,
although it was subsequently carried on more extensively by her
neighbor, Rhode Island. The Southern States participated to a very
limited extent. In South Carolina, where it prevailed most exten¬
sively, the United States census shows that of the number of slaves
introduced during the last four years of the traffic prior to 1808,
into Charleston, a Southern port, and the centre of the slave region,
the Southern share was less than ten per cent of the aggregate
importation, while as to the individuals engaged in the trafic, there
were but thirteen Southerners to one hundred and eighty-nine
citizens of Old and New England.
Thus do we find ourselves to-day, without any instrumentality of
our own, and with but little agency on the part of our immediate
ancestors, in possession of more than three millions of slaves, on
account of which we have now to encounter the deadly hostility
principally of this very Old and New England, but to a greater or ^
less degree, the opposition of the world. From this review we
perceive that almost from the date of the deluge to the present time,
slavery has existed at some period in every nation, civilized or
savage, of which we have any account, and that it is within a few
years only that the institution has been abolished by the most
enlightened Governments of the world. It results then that if that
institution /hich was ordered by the Almighty and approved by '
the Saviour and his Apostles while on earth, be a sin, it is one of
which we h ive been guilty in common with the entire human race.
So muc'i for its extent, let us now consider its effects, upon the
C
18
nations wherein it has existed and see whether these are as contended
by the North, characterized by a limited civilization, debased morals
and disastrous national interests.
I will not stop to propound the unnecessary interrogatory whether
the slave-holding patriarch, selected by the Almighty to become
the chosen repository of the promises, the exemplar of all believers
and in whom, as the voice of < hnnipottnuje declares " All the earth
be blessed," whether he was less civilized than the heathen by
whom he was surrounded in the days of his earthly pilgrimage, or
wven how much he may be surpassed in virtue and intelligence by
the debased Mahommedan who at this day guards the " holy
places,or the Arabian robber Ayho now devastates the once happy
land of Canaan.
Look to the Phoenicians the next slave-holders in chronological
ordeij. Were they a people of limited civilization? See their
commerce as described by the prophet Ezekiel, not only within
their own settlements throughout the Archipelago, in the south of
Spain, the north coast of Africa, north-west coast of Sicily, and in
the Islands of the Persian Gulf, but beyond these through the
"Pillars of Hercules" to Britain for tin, to Africa for slaves,
through the Arabian Gulf to Ophir for Gold, and through the
Persian Gulf to India and Ceylon for spices. That their land
trade, carried on by caravans, was no less important, extending in
nil parts of Arabia and Persia, through Palmyra with Babylon and
even China. Nor were the Phoenicians less advanced in arts, as is
established by the same Divine authority. Look into the Book of
Kings and contemplate the grandest building the world ever saw,
although erected more than a thousand years before the christian
era. The finest specimens of ingenuity and art, the noblest
applications of mechanical philosophy—the castings in brass, in
£old, and in silver; the carvings in wood and in stone;-con¬
template these, and reflect, that they were not only the work of
Phoenicians, but mostly of slaves. King Solomon who " exceeded
i 11 the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom," acknowledging
the want of skill among his own people, applied for and was
furnished both with artizans and materials for his temple by
Hiram, King of Tyre. But the chief glory of the slave-holding
Phoenicians, that in which they surpassed contemporary nations,
was neither commerce or the arts; it did not consist in the
manufactures of glass or of that unsurpassed dye, the Tyrian
Purple, of which they were the discoverers, but it was the
invention of letters, that almost superhuman discovery, which first
19
gave permanence to the creations of thought, and will send forth the
"winged words of genius, to make the circuit of the globe, and
charm while it endures. Such was slave-holding Tyre. What is
she now 1 k' Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the dav
that thou wast created,'' saith the Lord. jPevfect, 0 Tyrus! not¬
withstanding thy slaves, •' 'till iniquity was found in thee.11 But
" because thou has set thine heart as the heart of God," '*1
will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea
oauseth his waves to come up,11 "'and they shall destroy the
walls of Tyrus and break down her towers, I will also scrape hej
dust from her. and make her like the top of a rock. It shall
be a place for tin-* spreading of nets in the midst of the sea,
for I have spoken it saith the Lord God.'" And most fearfully as
well as literally has this dreadful prophecy been fulfilled. The
armies of Nebuchadnezzer and Alexander have battered down her
walls to a level with the earth and cast her towers in the sea. The
influx of the Mediterranean li;is long since washed away the dust
from her ruins and the eastern traveller who this day sails along the
shores of the Levant may discover the site of ancient Tyre by the
use to which it is now appropriated ^>y the tishermen of Sur,
" a place for the hanging of nets in the midst of the sea.11
Egypt is the next slaveholding country in the order of time.
Associated as is the name of Egypt, with darkness by the terrible
Providential visitation under which she once suffered, the uninformed
might be inclined to regard her as destitute of intellectual light,
but she was formerly, as the student, of history knows, the theatre
of enterprise, civilization and science.' As early as 1500 year*
before the christian era, her astronomers knew the form of the
earth, calculated solar and lunar eclipses, and had in use of their
own invention, sun-dials and water-clocks. The overflowings of th^
Nile rendered geometry necessary, and their acquaintance with that
science is evident from the instruments they employed for measur¬
ing the height of that river, while the use <\f water-screws, canals
and sluices, indicate no ordinary proficiency in jnechanies, hydrau¬
lics and hydrostatics. Their progress in the arts was no less
remarkable. They were the inventors of the first .musical instru¬
ment, the three-stringed lyre. Their Sculpture, though characterized
by stiffness and uniformity, is surprising for the early age in which
it appeared. But it was in Architecture they especially excelled.
Whatever celebrity the palace of Bulis at Babylon or the temple of
Solomon at Jerusalem may have attained among the ancients, no
vestige of either survive even to mark the spot of their locality;
20
but the massive edifices of Egypt, her temples, pyramids and
obelisks, built rather for eternity than time, still remain to excite
our admiration as the most anpient as well as stupendous structures
upon earth. " Without Egypt," says Champolion, the famous ex¬
plorer of Egyptian Antiquities, " Without Egypt, Greece would
never have become the classical land of the fine arts. Such is my
entire belief in this grand problem. Write these line •• almost in
the presence of bas-reliefs which the Egyptians execatt i with the
most elegant delicacy of workmanship 1700 years before the
christian era." Such was Egypt in the days of her glo~ ~, when as
Herodotus tells us, one hundred thousand slaves worked upon a
single pyramid, " a mighty Empire, the seat of a high civilization,
a land of wonderful creations," as history describes her. What is
she at this day when yielding to the persuasions of England, she
has liberated her slaves—a Turkish Vice-Royalty, scarcely a fifth
part inhabited, governed by a Pacha appointed or confirmed by the
Sultan of Constantinople. In short the fate of unhappy Egypt is
most strikingly symbolized by her own wonderful statue of Mem-
non which still stands amid the splendid ruins of Thebes and of
which it is said, that as s#on as the first beams of the morning sun
fell upon it, it uttered a joyful sound, but as the setting orb shed
upon it his departing rays, its notes were changed to sadness.
Following Egypt upon the world's stage, came Greece and Rome.
Were they whose soil we have seen teemed with slaves, behind
their age in civilization? They who by universal consent have
furnished models which twice ten centuries have failed to equal,
of kll that is elegant in literature, profound in science, elevated in
imagination or noble in character? Has the world in two thousand
years in any other portion of its extended limits produced such
poets as Homer or Horace, such historians as ThucididesorSallust,'
such orators as Demosthenes or Cicero, such philosophers as Plato'
or Aristotle, such sculptors as Phidias or Praxitelles 1 Have the
examples of noble disinterestedness and self-sacrificing patriotism
which appear in every page of their history and make their name
a synonyme for all that is exalted and sublime in human nature^
ever been surpassed ? Do we, even in this enlightened age, often
witness such disinterested patriotism as characterized Aristides
when on the morning of the battle of Marathon the lot fell to him
to command and an opportunity thus offered by which he could
have covered himself with all the glory of that immortal victory,
would not jeopard for one instant his country's safety, for all the
glory which the world could bestow, but surrendered the post to
21
his rival Miltiades, who had not more skill but only more experiene^
than himself. Or do we often see in these days such noble self-
sacrifice as Regulus displayed when captured by the Carthagenians
and sent to Rome to propose an exchange of prisoners, strongly
dissuaded his countrymen against the step, arguing that as he was
advanced in years, he could not serve the State much longer, whereas
the Carthagenian generals taken by the Romans were, as he con¬
tended, in the flower of their age, and capable of rendering great
service to their country for many years ; and in spite of the tears
and prayers of his family, the entreaties of the Senate and people,
(who were ready to save his life by any sacrifice,) returned to Car¬
thage and endured the most awful death that history records! Such
are the monuments of slavery, have they ever been excelled1?
And now equality, where are thy monuments? Where are the
monuments which since the abolition of this so called debasing
institution either Greece or Rome, has produced ? Where is the
single author, whether poet, historian, orator, or philosopher, which
for nearly eighteen centuries, either Athens or Rome * has exhibited
to the world? Echo answers where! Not only the literature but
even the language of both nations has become extinct. Visit Greece
to-day and outside of Athens, whose population is mostly foreign,
you will find the decendants of Miltiades and Themistocles a race
of semi-barbarians stepping heedlessly over the ruins of fallen
temples, without a conception nr' to their founders, the age in which
they were built, or the purposes for which they were erected.
Wander through 'Southern Italy now, and you will be struck by
the entire absence of all enterprise and all life. A pestilential
atmosphere, moral as well as natural, appears to overhang the
land, paralyzing the energies of both body and mind, and go where
you may you seem as if strolling through some vast cemetery with
nothing to arrest attention amid the evidences of disolution and
decay but the scattered monuments of departed greatness.
Turn now to modern Europe. Behold those self-complacent
nations which for the services rendered mankind in. the abolition of
slavery and villenage, have constituted thmselves censors. for the
world, while they still retain the most odious systeyis of slavery
known, from the mining operatives of England to the serfs of Russia,
who are this day sold like cattle, as appendages to land. In
* A doubt may arise as to the correctness of this remark with refdrence to
Rome, but the only apparent exception is that of the poet Tasso, and he even
was not born at Rome nor lived there except a short period previous to his death.
It is not intended to embrace the literature of Florence in the 14th and loth
centuries, where among a multitude of authors may be found some names of the
first celebrity.
22
■what respect do they surpass the nations of antiquity, notwithstand¬
ing the incalculable advantages both of the christian religion and
the knowledge of the art of printing ? Are they more free or more
'virtuous? Can they exhibit greater mental triumphs or mora
* glorious actions ? It will not be pretended. In all the higher
* departments of intellect, in all that relates to taste or imagination
they will not venture upon a comparison. Compare then, the
proudest of those governments, England, iK>t with the nations of
antiquity but with herself. Compare slave-holding and slave-
• trading England with England of the present day, when her air has
become too pure for slaves to breathe, and see how much the
former falls below the latter in point of civilization. The age in
which the intellect of a nation reaches its highest point of cultiva¬
tion has always been termed its u golden age.11 Now which of
the distinguished periods of England's history is that which has
always been regarded and pronounced its boasted golden age?
The reign of Qveen Anne—the days of Newton, Dryden, Pope,
Swift, Addison and a host of others. The days when slavery
existed in all her colonies and when the slave trade flourished on
'every sea. The days of that very sovereign whose diplomatists at
• the treaty of Utrecht, as we have seen, wrested from the "Royal
'Guinea Company" of France the contract to furnish the Spanish
American Colonies with slaves. The days when under that contract
that very Queen Anne bound herself for the term of thirty years
then next to come, to transport, at a fixed price, four thousand and
'fight hundred slaves onnvalh/ to the colonies.
Was there any age in which the triumphs of intellect were
' greater in France than this very period of slavery and the slave-
trade—the age of Corneille, of Fenelon and of Rousseau ?
Was there any period when Spain and Portugal stood higher in
power and intellect than that in which the same commercial
enterprise which instigated so actively the slave trade led to the
discovery of the East Indies by one and the West Indies by the
other ?
It has been remarked, and it is well worthy of serious contempla¬
tion, that them does not now exist on the face of the earth a people
in a tropical climate or one approaching to it, where slaves do not
exist that is at this day in a state of high civilization. On the
continents of Asia. Africa and Europe, mark the countries to
which reference has been already made. Phoenicia, Egypt, Greece,
Rome, Spain and Portugal—nations which at particular periods,
those when slave-holding, surpassed the world in cultivation, have
23
now, that they have abolished the institution, been gradually
retrograding, and have already either reached the lowest point of
civilization or are rapidly approximating to it. On the American
continents in the same latitudes, see Mexico, once, and at a time
that .she possessed slaves, a strong and prosperous people, now
that she has abolished the institution noted for nothing more than
the number of her revolutions and her Leperos. Look at the
South American Republics starting under a second Washington
upon a career which promised to rival in brilliancy that of the
United States; but shortly after guilty of the folly of emancipation,
have now, as travellers represent, "lost most of the. arts of civi¬
lized life," and will soon need another Manco Capac to open again the
rich fountains of knowledge. Behold the islands of the West Indies,
"adorned after the cunningest pattern of nature for the delightful
abodes of civilized mdn," rapidly sinking into the disgusting depths
of barbarism. St. Domingo, once the richest and most valuable
of the Antilles, with her untold productions in the days when her
soil was tilled by slaves; now, that those slaves have reached the
elevation of freemen, those productions have disappeared and those
freemen from worshippers of the "'living and true God" [when
slaves] have gone back into idolatry, and become, the worshippers
of serpents.
The British Government imitating the folly of the French Radicals
of 179*2, in the emancipation of their slaves in Jamica, that beautiful
island, the garden spot of the world, is rapidly approaching the con¬
dition when, like St. Domingo, she. too will be stricken from the map
of civilized existence. It is another striking fact in this connection,
that the only exceptions to that general decline which has followed
emancipation both in South America and the West Indies, the only
portions of them where civilization and prosperity can now be found
are the States of Brazil and Cuba where the institution of slavery
is still retained.
Can it be the design of the Creator that these, regions con¬
stituting one-half of the earth's surface and by far the most
productive portion, capable of furnishing the entire -food and
elothing for the world, should be abandoned forever to desolation
and barbarism ? (Certain it is the rice and sugar lands of the
Southern sea-board as well as those of the lower Mississippi will
never be reclaimed by the labor of freemen,) and yet to such a
condition, to the sole occupation of wild beasts and fettish worship¬
pers will they be assure Uy reduced if the schemes of the abolitionists
are but suffered to prevail.
24
We have thus seen ilot only that slavery has existed in every age
and at some period or other in every nation of the earth, but that
whenever and wherever it existed, it was accompanied by the
highest civilization and greatest prosperity. And we further see
that this civilization and this prosperity as invariably deserted them
whenever and wherever the institution was abolished. Ought not
then an institution which secures these blessings, to be preserved t
If so, how is that object to be attained, unless the youths, our future
legislators, to whom the government must soon be committed,
sustain it.
And how can those youths sustain it unless prepared by education
for that purpose, and how can they be prepared by education for
that purpose if we intrust that education to the enemies of the
institution? It results therefore that a Southern education for
Southern youth is indispensably necessary, it being the oniy means
of sustaining an institution which is indissolubly interwoven not only
with the civilization and prosperity, but with the rights, interests ■
and honor, of the South.
Young gentlemen, members of the Alpha Pi. Delta Society,
permit me in conclusion a single word. If it be necessary that the
advantages of a Southern education be provided for Southern youth,
is it not equally necessary that Southern youth should improve the
advantages thus provided for them 1 The difference in your educa¬
tion, let me assure you, will depend not on the advantages of
instruction you enjoy, but upon those only which you improve.
The greatest educational advantages the world could afford, if un-
embraced, would be of no avail, while thj instruction offered in this
recenntly established seminary, if properly improved, cannot fail to
rfender you the equal, intellectually, of any graduate of the highest
University. Ancient institutions, renowned professors, numerous
lectures, or vast libraries, cannot make scholars. Scholars must
make themselves. Every scholar who has yet appeared has become
such by his own efforts—by personal application—by the patient
and- persevering use of the- machinery within him. u Self made
men " ai*e not confined t6 that class who have never been within
sight of a college spire. Every man, inside or outside of a college,
is self-made or not made at all. The difference between men is not
made 'fcy others but by themselves. All excellence comes from
withiny and must be the result of ones own exertions. A man can
no more learn by the sweat of another man's brains, than he can
take exercise by getting another man to walk for him. Banish,
banish then forever, I entreat you, my young friends, the weak and.
sense ess idea that any thing will serve your purpose but study?
. omm& osnldva et vehement occnpatio as Cicero defines it, that
intense, unwearied, absorbing study.
Not only does your own interest, if you desire to succeed in life,
ca upon you for exertion, but the institution whose character
epends on your improvement, expects it. If you would make
this institution the pride of the State, you must make your-
sel\es the pride of the institution. And surely if there ever
was a time when a young Georgian would be roused to become
the pride of and reflect honor upon, a college in his own State,
it would be now when a false and perverted public sentiment
is rendering it impossible for him to prosecute his studies in similar
institutions at the North. But above all, the State, whose property
you are, demands the highest improvement of your intellectual
faculties. The drift of opinion at the North is steadily setting to a
trial of strength with slavery in its stronghold. The open attack
may be deferred a few years longer" as you are to arrive
at manhood if you live, just so sm\, . nut attack come. The area
of free-soil is rapidly increasing, aiutn ' and fanaticism are dili¬
gently enlarging its borders, the lines of circumvallation are cease,
lessly rising around our citadel, already has their chief, from his
place in the United States Senate, sent forth to the black columns
under his^command the cry " we have hemmed them in, food, water
and reinforcements are cut off, the last pass-way of retreat is closed?
they must starve, be cut to pieces, or surrender." Study then, my
young countrymen, study and prepare for the contest.
Guardians]1 of youthful learning! In your hands rest the destinies
of our r State. Your dominion is 'kover that germ of all her power
the strong and"generous and manly spirits of the rising youth around
you. It is the lesson of history confirmed by experience, that every
thing which exalts a nation and renders its institutions permanent,'
depends upon the character givenby education to her boys. Recol¬
lect then that in the great contest which our country seems nearing,
it is mind which will be in demand, it is the power that comes from
within which will rule, and this power it is your province to mould.
In marshalling forces for the contest, Northern institutions. possess
no advantage over you, they may, it is true, by more machinery in
the way of professors and lectures, contribute to the grace and.polish
of intellect, but in cultivating and producing the true strength of a
nation, well-disciplined minds—minds habituated to active persevering
enquiry and masterly grappling with thought, they should have no
superiority. Grace and polish will not avail them in the contest.
D
26
Robust, symmetrical, well poised minds, alone will prevail. Minds
capable of strong, self-inoved and independent action, competent to
stand alone and defy the world, if God and right demand it, and yet
so docile that a child may lead them, if he only hold them by the
bands of truth.
It is of immense moment to us in the South that we so educate our
youth that they may be able, amidst the unparallelled excitements
by which they are surrounded, calmly and candidly to appreciate
their condition, and suffer themselves neither bound down by the
chains of a too rigid conservatism or carried away by the extrava¬
gances of "inevitable progress." So educate them that they may
stand firm and erect amid the storm, yielding neither to the fanati¬
cism of abolition on the one hand, or driven by that madness beyond
the constitution into a reopening of an abandoned trafic on the other*
So educate them in short, that they may know as well what are the
sacrifices of interest and feeling which for the preservation of our
Union it may become necessary to make, as what are the obliga¬
tions to right and honor, they should unhesitatingly maintain, even
at the cost of a dissolution of this confederacy.
Friends and patrons of learning who have gathered to witness the
exercises of this interesting occasion, a word to you and I have
done. If nothing which I have advanced has been able to convince
you of the necessity of Southern education for Southern youth, I
have in reserve an appeal, which the heart of no true Georgian, I
trust, can possibly resist.
It is the solemn warning of our departed sires. It conies to us
like "the handwriting on the wall11 to the inmates of Belshasser's
palace with all the force of merited retribution. It requires no
Daniel to interpret, but stands upon the pages of our statute hook
in a language which all may read that, " sending them, (our youth)
" abroad to other countries for education will not answer these jntr-
^poses, is too humiliating an acknowledgement of the ignorance or
44 inferiority of our own, and will always be the cause of so great
" foreign attachments, that upon the principles of policy, it is inad-
'l missible.'1'' Not content with this admonition embraced 111 the Act
of 1785, for the establishment of a State University, our patriot fathers,
at the same- session of the General Assembly, passed a separate Act
disfranchising any person who might be sent abroad for the purposes
of education and declaring such ineligible to any office, civil or
military, in the State, for a term of years equal to that of their
foreign residence. And this statute remains to this day unaltered
and unrepealed.
27
Have we, 1 would ask, less love for our sons or less regard for
our country, than actuated our ancestors ? Or is the danger of
contamination from a foreign education less now than formerly, less
from one obtained in New England than from one acquired in Old
England, less from an education obtained in the abolitionized and
inimical States of Massachusetts and Connecticut at the present day
than one acquired in the indifferent but friendly countries of Europe
in the last century % It will not be admitted ! Why then have we
on so vital a subject, for more than seventy-three years, disregarded
the wholesome injunctions of that authoritative voice 1
Let us pause, before it is forever too late, and gather wisdom
from the teachings of the past.
There is a lesson connected with the establishment of those insti¬
tutions of Sparta to which reference has been made, which it would
be well for us to ponder. When Lycurgus had framed the institu¬
tions and laws which gave to Sparta her subsequent splendour,
(institutions and laws too which like those of our fathers of '85,
were based upon the instruction and proper training of youth,)
interested as was most natural in their effect and permanence, he
repaired to Delphi and inquired of the oracle "Whether the new
laws wrere sufficient for the happiness of Sparta?And mark well
the reply of the Pythian priestess, " Sparta will remain the most
flourishing of States, so long as she observes those laws.. " Had
our fathers of '85, after establishing the institutions and laws*
which I would urge you so warmly to respect, been able to pro*
pound to some Delphic oracle a similar interrogatory as to the
effect and permanence of their labors, the answer would doubtless
have been in substance identical with that delivered to Lycurgus,
" Georgia will remain the most flourishing of States so long as she
observes those laxvs. "
But of this lesson of history, the half is yet untold 'i
So long as Sparta continued to observe the laws and institutions
of Lycurgus, she retained unimpaired, the power and influence which
gave her supremacy over all her rivals, but when in the lapse of
time those laws became at first neglected and then forgotten, Sparta
fell to rise no more forever. The ploughshare now passes over the
site where lie buried in one common grave, all the objects animate
or inanimate that once constituted the glory or the wealth of Sparta.
Some ruins of a theatre and the foundations of a small temple exca¬
vated on one side of a cultivated hill form at this day the whole
visible vestiges of a city which once gave law to all the States of
Greece.
28
Profiting then by so fearful a warning, let us resolve that from
this day for ward the laws of our ancestors shall be observed—from
this day forward, Southern youths shall be educated at Southern
institutions in a Southern land—from this day forward, so far as
respects education at least, our motto shall be "Independence now,
Independence forever !15