XXXIV.
This upheaval of the earth’s surface, reminding the geographer of the Italian peninsula, vaguely perhaps in form, in natural fertility and in purity of climate, is destined to play an important part in the future advancement of the Republic. For here is the heart of the eastern portion of the continent, geographically, climatologically, and mineralogically. Here Nature is too prolific to be long neglected by the cupidity or the ambition of men, when the barriers and obstructions of inquiry and settlement, which have been reared against the advance and design of civilization by the Slave Faction, shall have been removed. When the tide of European emigration, which steadily brings to the New World the pure blood and youth of races, turns its stream of industrial life towards these valleys, mountain slopes, and terraces; when the laws of alimentation are understood and properly observed; when the spire of the school-house rises in the vista of every landscape, or points the way at every cross-road,—then we may expect to see a new variety of the human race appear, possessed of remarkable physical strength and beauty, and whose ideas and efforts, typical of the healthy and developed mind, will, like the influences of New England and Scandinavia, give fresh impulse and impress to the civilizations of the earth.
XXXV.
Races of men—nations—even the lesser communities, during the periods of their social existence, erect monuments, or leave, unwillingly sometimes, traces of their progress, their advancement, their culture, as memorials for the admiration, or as the objects of horror for the contempt, of future generations.
The gigantic pyramids and sphinxes of Egypt tell of the civilization of their extinct founders; the airy and graceful columns, with the wonderful sculptures of the Parthenon, disclose the degree of the perfection and the delicacy of the Greek mind. Rome, though long since vanished from among the nations of the earth, has left the impress of her force, grandeur, and wisdom in those laws which now direct the tribunals of men; the lofty and colossal structures of the temples of the Rhine are the emblems of faith as well as the masterpieces of the Gothic heart and intellect; even the mysterious and history-forgotten Druids have left their rude reminiscences in those weird circles of enormous and cyclopean rocks, beyond which all is darkness.
Thus men perpetuate their memories among the annals of the earth. But after their long period of existence and progress, what have the Slave Faction left for the historian to contemplate with satisfaction? for an attentive world to study, imitate, and admire? What beyond this appalling cloud of ignorance have they left as legacy to the poor white? What besides misery, violence, and crime have they bequeathed to the black man? With what treasures, in the estimation of mankind, have they enriched themselves, or left as inheritance to their degenerate offspring?
The history of this remorseless party, its selfish and sordid aims, its cruel results, will always find place among the annals of civilized man so long as the noblest acts of men are admired, and so long as the dark deeds of cruelty appall and overshadow our better nature. Thermopylæ, Marathon, and the holy sites where Liberty has struggled for existence, and where men have risen above the trammels of their earthly natures, will be remembered no longer than this field of blood and torture among the obscure forests of Georgia.
XXXVI.