The Difference of Race Between the Northern and Southern People [pp. 401-409]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
A NIAGAZINE DEVOTED TO LITERATURE, SCIENCE AND ART.
RICHMOND, JUNE, 1860.
THE DIFFERENCE OF RACE BETWEEN THE NORTHERN AND SOUTH ERN PEOPLE.
It is very well known that your magazine is almost exclpsively devoted to the
cause of polite literature; an effort, therefore, to force you into the teemning fields
of politics, will scarcely be appreciated.
But this effort is more apparent than
real, there being points involved in the
controversy, contest rather, between the
Northern and Southern States of this
Union, which may be considered peculiarly historical and philosophical, as contradistinguished from political-and which
appearing never to have been sufficiently
known, noticed, or understood, have never
received proper attention, or been invested with their proper importance; nor
will this article pretend to that accurate
and critical knowledge necessary to elucidate properly the subject to be referred
to. Its object is as much to elicit information and to direct attention to it, as to
a correct discussion of it. In addition
to a purpose of this kind, the remark
may be ventured, that the discussion
of political subjects, in a respectful and
dignified manner, has well nigh become
the duty of the press generally; since
the questions which agitate and divide
us as a people, have, in a very great
measure, lost their politico-party character, and risen to the importance of an
universal interest; and by the manner of
their settlement, must be established all
those laws which are to regulate, for
future time, our social, domestic, and
national relations, fortunes and history.
VOL. XXX-26
A CONTEST OF RACE exists at present
between the people of this government,
and broods threateningly and impend ingly over us as a nation. The contest
involves the entire fortunes and welfare
of those engaged in it; the strictest ref erence must, therefore, be had to the
native dissimilarities which obtain between the two leading elements, which,
combined, form what is called the American people, before we can calm down to
that peaceful and harmonious condition,
which has hitherto existed between us, to
a more or less modified extent. To go
no farther back than the formation of
our present government, it may be asserted that there has ever existed a certain want of cordial congeniality, which
has, and still evinces itself more markedly upon the subject of African slavery
than upon any other, and which of itself, in
some measure, proves the position of this
article. It being itself a question of race,
the disagreement in regard to it establishes the fact of some radical difference
between the disputants. But this incongeniality has heretofore been restrained
and controlled by many extraneous
causes, foreign to the main issue, together with many purposes, entertained
in common, originating in the formation
of a government, new and without complete precedent in the annals of history.
Now, however, it has culminated to the
highest point which its nature demands;
this being attributable to the fact, that