The Memories of Fifty Years | Page 7

of the soil
or other advantages. One peculiarity was observable, which their
descendants, in their emigration to the West, continue to this day to
practise: they usually came due west from their former homes, and
were sure to select, as nearly as possible, a new one in the same parallel,
and with surroundings as nearly like those they had left as possible.
With the North Carolinian, good spring-water, and pine-knots for his

fire, were the sine qua non. These secured, he went to work with the
assiduity and perseverance of a beaver to build his house and open his
fields. The Virginians, less particular, but more ambitious, sought the
best lands for grain and tobacco; consequently they were more diffused,
and their improvements, from their superior wealth, were more
imposing.
Wealth in all communities is comparative, and he who has only a few
thousand dollars, where no one else has so much, is the rich man, and
ever assumes the rich man's prerogatives and bearing. All experience
has proved that as a man estimates himself, so in time will the
community esteem him; and he who assumes to lead or dictate will
soon be permitted to do so, and will become the first in prominence and
influence in his neighborhood, county, or State. Greatness commences
humbly and progresses by assumption. The humble ruler of a
neighborhood, like a pebble thrown into a pond, will continue to
increase the circle of his influence until it reaches the limits of his
county. The fathers speak of him, the children hear of him, his name is
a household word; if he but assumes enough, in time he becomes the
great man of the county; and if with impudence he unites a modicum of
talent, well larded with a cunning deceit, it will not be long before he is
Governor or member of Congress. It is not surprising, then, that in
nearly every one of these communities the great man was a Virginian.
It has been assumed by the Virginians that they have descended from a
superior race, and this may be true as regards many families whose
ancestors were of Norman descent; but it is not true of the mass of her
population; and for one descendant from the nobility and gentry of the
mother country, there are thousands of pure Anglo-Saxon blood. It was
certainly true, from the character and abilities of her public men, in her
colonial condition and in the earlier days of the republic, she had a right
to assume a superiority; but this, I fancy, was more the result of her
peculiar institutions than of any superiority of race or greater purity of
blood. I am far, however, from underrating the influence of blood. That
there are species of the same race superior in mental as well as in
physical formation is certainly true. The peculiar organization of the
brain, its fineness of texture in some, distinguish them as mentally
superior to others, as the greater development of bone and muscle
marks the superiority of physical power. Very frequently this difference

is seen in brothers, and sometimes in families of the same parents--the
males in some usurping all the mental acumen, and in others the
females. Why this is so, I cannot stop to speculate.
Virginia, in her many divisions of territory, was granted to the younger
sons of the nobility and gentry of England. They came with the peculiar
habits of their class, and located upon these grants, bringing with them
as colonists their dependants in England, and retaining here all the
peculiarities of caste. The former were the governing class at home, and
asserted the privilege here; the latter were content that it should be so.
In the formation of the first constitution for Virginia, the great feature
of a landed aristocracy was fully recognized in the organic law. The
suffragist was the landed proprietor, and in every county where his
possessions were this right attached. They recognized landed property
as the basis of government, and demanded the right for it of choosing
the lawmakers and the executors of the law. All power, and very nearly
all of the wealth of the State, was in the hands of the landlords, and
these selected from their own class or caste the men who were to
conduct the government. To this class, too, were confined most of the
education and learning in the new State; and in choosing for the
Legislature or for Congress, State pride and the love of power
prompted the selection of their brightest and best men.
Oratory was esteemed the first attribute of superior minds, and was
assiduously cultivated. There were few newspapers, and the press had
not attained the controlling power over the public mind as now.
Political information was disseminated chiefly by public speaking,