Now, where shall we go? These
abolitionists are even wedging in west of us. This damned
compromise line ought to be cut off the map. We ought to have a
chance to grow!"
Strange enough such speech sounds to-day,--speech demanding growth
for a part of a country, denying it for the whole, speech ignoring
the nationalist tendency so soon to overwhelm all bounds, all
creeds in the making of a mighty America that should be a home for
all the nations. But as the gray-headed old doctor went on he only
voiced what was the earnest conviction of many of the ablest men of
his time, both of the South and the North.
"The South has been robbed. We paid our share of the cost of this
last war, in blood and in money! We paid for our share in the new
territory won for the Union! And now they deny us any share of it!
A little band of ranters, of fanatics, undertake to tell a great
country what it shall do, what it shall think,--no matter even if
that is against our own interests and against our traditions!
Gentlemen, it's invasion, that's what it is, and that's my answer,
so far as my honest conscience and all my wisdom go.
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