Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/206

THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS will thoroughly endorse? If I do, I am uncon- scious of it. Turn the pages of the recent past as regards the possessions acquired in the Mexican "War, in which, gentlemen, it is but modestly stating the fact when I say that Southern chivalry was equal to Northern chivalry — that Southern blood was poured out in equal quantities with Northern blood — and Southern genius shone as bright upon the battle-field as Northern genius ; and yet, when the battle was done, and the glittering spoil was brought forward, a vast and dispro- portionate quantity was given to the North, while the South was made to take the portion of an almost portionless son. In the Northern States the Democratic party was once overwhelmingly in the ascendent. Why are they not so now? And why is the South more unitedly Democratic ? The answer is ready. Antislavery sentiment is dominant in the North — slavery sentiment is dominant in the South. And, gentlemen, let me tell you, if it is not presumption in me to tell you, why you have gro^vn weaker and weaker. It is my belief, from some observation and reflection upon this subject, that you are not now in the ascendent in the North, because you have tam- pered with the antislavery feeling of that sec- tion. I do not mean that you have tampered with it, or yielded to it, as a matter of choice. I do not mean that you are wilful traitors to your convictions of duty; but this is what I do 196