The First
Clause Says That White Men Shall Vote, And That Black Men Shall
Not - Which Means That All Political Action Shall Be Confined To
White Men.
The second clause says that all men are born equally
free and independent.
In Philadelphia I for the first time came across live
secessionists - secessionists who pronounced themselves to be such.
I will not say that I had met in other cities men who falsely
declared themselves true to the Union; but I had fancied, in regard
to some, that their words were a little stronger than their
feelings. When a man's bread - and, much more, when the bread of
his wife and children - depends on his professing a certain line of
political conviction, it is very hard for him to deny his assent to
the truth of the argument. One feels that a man, under such
circumstances, is bound to be convinced, unless he be in a position
which may make a stanch adherence to opposite politics a matter of
grave public importance. In the North I had fancied that I could
sometimes read a secessionist tendency under a cloud of Unionist
protestations. But in Philadelphia men did not seem to think it
necessary to have recourse to such a cloud. I generally found, in
mixed society, that even there the discussion of secession was not
permitted; but in society that was not mixed I heard very strong
opinions expressed on each side. With the Unionists nothing was so
strong as the necessity of keeping of Slidell and Mason; when I
suggested that the English government would probably require their
surrender, I was talked down and ridiculed. "Never that - come what
may." Then, within half an hour, I would be told by a secessionist
that England must demand reparation if she meant to retain any
place among the great nations of the world; but he also would
declare that the men would not be surrendered. "She must make the
demand," the secessionists would say, "and then there will be war;
and after that we shall see whose ports will be blockaded!" The
Southerner has ever looked to England for some breach of the
blockade quite as strongly as the North has looked to England for
sympathy and aid in keeping it.
The railway from Philadelphia to Baltimore passes along the top of
Chesapeake Bay and across the Susquehanna River; at least the
railway cars do so. On one side of that river they are run on to a
huge ferry-boat, and are again run off at the other side. Such an
operation would seem to be one of difficulty to us under any
circumstances; but as the Susquehanna is a tidal river, rising and
falling a considerable number of feet, the natural impediment in
the way of such an enterprise would, I think, have staggered us.
We should have built a bridge costing two or three millions
sterling, on which no conceivable amount of traffic would pay a
fair dividend. Here, in crossing the Susquehanna, the boat is so
constructed that its deck shall be level with the line of the
railway at half tide, so that the inclined plane from the shore
down to the boat, or from the shore up to the boat, shall never
exceed half the amount of the rise or fall.
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