INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE. 419 



of Mexico, who lived there for ages of which we have no history, 

 the people who built those monuments and mounds, had a different 

 origin from the tribes which inhabit the more northern parts of our 

 country. If that be true, the fact stated by the gentleman will be 

 accounted for. All that he has stated may be true, but we cannot 

 assume that all the people who dwelt from the British Provinces to 

 Central America had a common origin. 



I do not claim" that we are to attribute to the influence of climate 

 all the changes that have occurred in our own people, or in the dif- 

 ferent peoples, as we find them in the different countries of the 

 earth; but I do say, that it seems to me a pretty well established 

 fact, that there are in these general laws facts which we are not 

 to overlook, and to which we should yield and must yield ; and our 

 duty as intelligent American citizens is to recognize these facts, 

 and shape our future course, politically, with reference to them. 



One other point I wish to notice, and that is what has been said 

 with reference to the intelligence found in the southern States. If 

 any gentleman has understood me as calling in question in the 

 least the intelligence of the people who have originated there, I 

 have been entirely misunderstood. I have not called in question 

 intelligence ; that is not the question at all. You may grant any 

 degree of intellectual development or intelligence simply you 

 please, but that intellectual development must itself come into 

 obedience to the same law. Take the same isothermal zone of 

 our southern States as you find it on the eastern hemisphere — the 

 section to which I referred — and there history tells us that very 

 many of the most eminent men and women, in intelligence and 

 culture, that this world has ever known, originated. It is not a 

 question of intelligence — grant all you please ; but it will inevi- 

 tably be consolidated together, intensified, and directed into one 

 channel, as it Avas in the southern half of our country. It may 

 be great and brilliant ; we may be under obligations to it, as we 

 were in very many respects ; but nevertheless, the greater law 

 will hold good. 



Adjourned to Friday, at ten o'clock A. M. 



