Cakes And Ale Were Going, And Ginger
Was Still Hot In The Mouth.
When many were together no words of
unhappiness were heard.
It was at those small meetings of two or
three that women would weep instead of smiling, and that men would
run their hands through their hair and sit in silence, thinking of
their ruined hopes and divided children.
I have spoken of Southern hopes and Northern fears, and have
endeavored to explain the feelings of each party. For myself I
think that the Southerners have been wrong in their hopes, and that
those of the North have been wrong in their fears. It is not better
to rule in hell than serve in heaven. Of course a Southern
gentleman will not admit the premises which are here by me taken for
granted. The hell to which I allude is, the sad position of a low
and debased nation. Such, I think, will be the fate of the Gulf
States, if they succeed in obtaining secession - of a low and debased
nation, or, worse still, of many low and debased nations. They will
have lost their cotton monopoly by the competition created during
the period of the war, and will have no material of greatness on
which either to found themselves or to flourish. That they had much
to bear when linked with the North, much to endure on account of
that slavery from which it was all but impossible that they should
disentangle themselves, may probably be true. But so have all
political parties among all free nations much to bear from political
opponents, and yet other free nations do not go to pieces. Had it
been possible that the slaveowners and slave properties should have
been scattered in parts through all the States and not congregated
in the South, the slave party would have maintained itself as other
parties do; but in such case, as a matter of course, it would not
have thought of secession. It has been the close vicinity of
slaveowners to each other, the fact that their lands have been
coterminous, that theirs was especially a cotton district, which has
tempted them to secession. They have been tempted to secession, and
will, as I think, still achieve it in those Gulf States, much to
their misfortune.
And the fears of the North are, I think, equally wrong. That they
will be deceived as to that Monroe doctrine is no doubt more than
probable. That ambition for an entire continent under one rule will
not, I should say, be gratified. But not on that account need the
nation be less great, or its civilization less extensive. That hook
in its nose and that thorn in its jaw will, after all, be but a hook
of the imagination and an ideal thorn. Do not all great men suffer
such ere their greatness be established and acknowledged? There is
scope enough for all that manhood can do between the Atlantic and
the Pacific, even though those hot, swampy cotton fields be taken
away; even though the snows of the British provinces be denied to
them.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 143 of 275
Words from 73489 to 74009
of 142339
