They Might As Well Say
That Traveling In Carts Without Springs, At The Rate Of Three Miles
An Hour, Was A Legacy Made Over To Them By England.
On that matter
of traveling they have not been contented with the old habits left
to them, but have gone ahead and made railroads.
In creating those
railways the merit is due to them; and so also is the demerit of
maintaining those slaves.
That demerit and that mistake have doubtless brought upon the
Americans the grievances of their present position; and will, as I
think, so far be accompanied by ultimate punishment that they will
be the immediate means of causing the first disintegration of their
nation. I will leave it to the Americans themselves to say whether
such disintegration must necessarily imply that they have failed in
their political undertaking. The most loyal citizens of the
Northern States would have declared a month or two since - and for
aught I know would declare now - that any disintegration of the
States implied absolute failure. One stripe erased from the banner,
one star lost from the firmament, would entail upon them all the
disgrace of national defeat! It had been their boast that they
would always advance, never retreat. They had looked forward to add
ever State upon State, and Territory to Territory, till the whole
continent should be bound together in the same union. To go back
from that now, to fall into pieces and be divided, to become smaller
in the eyes of the nations, to be absolutely halfed, as some would
say of such division, would be national disgrace, and would amount
to political failure.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 500 of 531
Words from 133859 to 134134
of 142339
