Master-mechanic, master-farmer, you are right. These people are your inferiors; with all their boasts and brags of 'culture,' you could teach them, by your shrewder intelligence, at a glance, the short cut to almost any thing at which their intellects might be employed; and you indulge in a very natural feeling, when, as conquerors, in glancing over their Canaan, you involuntarily plan what you will do some day, if a farm should by chance be your share of the bounty-money, when the war is over. For it is absurd to suppose that such a country will continue forever a prey to the wasting and exhaustive disease of the plantation-system, or that the black will always, as at present, inefficiently and awkwardly fulfill those mechanic labors which a keen white workman can better manage. Wherever the hand of the Northman touches, in these times, it shows a superior touch, whether in improvising a six-action cotton-gin, in repairing locomotives, or in sarcastically seizing a 'Secesh' newspaper and reëditing it with a storm of fun and piquancy such as its doleful columns never witnessed of old. In this and in a thousand ways, the Northern soldier realizes that he is in a land of inferiors, and a very rich land at that. At this point, his speculations on manifest destiny may very appropriately begin. There is no harm in suffering this idea to take firm hold. Like ultimate emancipation, it may be assumed as a fact, all to be determined in due time, according to the progress of events, as wisely laid down by President Lincoln, without hurry, without feverish haste, simply guided by the firm determination that eventually it must be.
We can not insist too strongly on this great truth, that when a nation makes up its mind that a certain event must take place, and acts calmly in the spirit of perfect persuasion, very little is really needed to hasten the wished-for consummation. Events suddenly spring up to aid, and in due time all is accomplished. Those who strive to hurry it retard it, those who work to drag it back hasten it. Never yet on earth was a real conviction crushed or prematurely realized. So it is, so it will be with this 'Northing' of the South. Let the country simply familiarize itself with the idea, and the idea will advance as rapidly as need be. In it lies the only solution of the great problem of reconciling the South and the North; the sooner we make up our minds to the fact, the better; and, on the other hand, the more deliberately and calmly we proceed to the work, the more certain will its accomplishment be. Events are now working to aid us with tremendous power and rapidity—faith, a judicious guiding of the current as it runs, is all that is at present required to insure a happy fulfillment.
The degree to which a vindictive and malignant opposition to every thing for the sake of 'the party' can be carried, has been well illustrated in the amount and variety of slander which has been heaped by the Southern-rights, sympathizing Democratic press on the efforts of those noble-hearted women who have endeavored to do something to alleviate the condition of the thousands of contrabands, who are many without clothes, employment, or the slightest idea of what they are to do. It would be hard to imagine any thing more harmless or more perfectly free from any thing like sinister or selfish motives than have been the conduct and motives of the noble women who have assumed this mission. Florence Nightingale undertook nothing nobler; and the world will some day recognize the deserts of those who strove against every obstacle to relieve the sufferings and enlighten the ignorance of the blacks—among whom were thousands of women and little children. Such being the literal truth, what does the reader think of such a paragraph as the following, which we find going the rounds of the Boston Courier and other journals of the same political faith?
'On dit, that some of the schoolmarms who went to South-Carolina several weeks ago, are not so intent upon teaching the young ideas how to shoot,' as upon flirting with the officers, in a manner not entirely consistent with morality. General Hunter is going to send some of the misbehaving misses home.'
If there is a loathsome, cowardly, infamous phrase, it is that of on dit, 'they say,' 'it is said,' when used to assail the virtue of women—above all, of women engaged in such a cause as that in question. We believe in our heart, this whole story to be a slander of the meanest description possible—a piece of as dirty innuendo as ever disgraced a Democratic paper. The spirit of the viper is apparent in every line of it. Yet it is in perfect keeping with the storm of abuse and falsehood which has been heaped on these 'contraband' missionaries, teachers, and nurses, since they went their way. They have been accused of pilfering, of lying, of doing nothing, of corrupting the blacks, of going out only to speculate, and, as might have been expected, we have at last the unfailing resort of the lying coward—a dirty hint as to breaking the seventh commandment—all according to the devilish old Jesuit precept of, 'Calumniare fortiter aliquis kœrebit'—'Slander boldly, something will be sure to stick.' And to such a depth of degradation—to the hinting away the characters of young ladies because they try to teach the poor contrabands—can men descend 'for the sake of the party'!
Of late years, those soundest of philanthropists, the men of common-sense who labor unweariedly to facilitate exchanges between civilized nations, have endeavored to promote in every possible manner the adoption of the same system of currency, weights and measures among civilized nations. It has been accepted as a rule beyond all debate, that if such mediums of business could be adopted—nay, if a common language even were in use, industry would receive an incalculable impulse, and the production of capital be enormously increased.
Not so, however, thinks John M. Vernon, of New-Orleans, who, stimulated by the purest secession sentiments, and urged by the most legitimate secession and 'State rights' logic, has developed a new principle of exclusiveness by devising a new system of decimal currency, which he thus recommends to the rebel Congress:
'We are a separate and distinct people, influenced by different interests and sentiments from the vandals who would subjugate us. Our manners and customs are different; our tastes and talents are different; our geographical position is different; and in conformity with natural laws, nature and instinct, our currency,—weights and measures, should be different. 'The basis of integral limit of value proposed for our currency, is the star, which is to be divided into one hundred equal parts, each part to be called a centime, namely: 10 centimes—1 tropic; 10 tropics—1 star; 10 stars—1 sol. 'These denominations for our currency have been selected for three reasons: first, they are appropriate to ourselves as a people; second, they are emblems of cheerfulness, honor, honesty of purpose, solidity, and stability; and third, the words used are simple, easily remembered, and are common to several languages. I will, in addition, observe that similar characteristics distinguish the proposed tables of weights and measures.'