412 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



tone will be soft and musical, but monotonous, seldom enlivened 

 by that swelling intonation and well modulated harmony which is 

 heard in northern dialects. Their utterance will be uncertain and 

 indistinct, either from a careless sluggishness or a tripping, vola- 

 tile precipitancy. They make promises they never expect to keep, 

 and indulge much in use of the superlative degree. The English 

 say one cannot speak in the French language without lying. They 

 are fruitful in assertions, but reluctant to reason. Bring them to 

 a point by j^our questions, and they grow heated and jDassionate. 

 They resort much to falsities and make-believes. 



Under the late regime in our own country, the oft-repeated 

 boast about the magnificent advantages of southern over northern 

 life and the transcendent superiority of southern character, was 

 the most stupendous sham the world ever saw ; and the climax of 

 that self-deception was, that our southern friends, in entering the 

 late civil strife, based their hopes of success not so much upon 

 their own intrinsic strength as upon the baseness of northern 

 character. 



If, then, to the natural facilities for a life of present gratification 

 aiforded by a genial climate you can add an adaptation of the soil 

 to some general agricultural pursuit, such as will absorb a large 

 part of the attention of the people, and still more, if to this you 

 can add the element of compulsory labor, you will always have 

 resulting the social, political and religious phenomena which has 

 been witnessed in the southern half of the United States. From 

 one general employment came a common interest, binding all in a 

 common bond of union. Cotton supplied their every want, the 

 slave raised the cotton, and hence when tlie north laid its hand on 

 the negro it took away the foundation of southern life. Thus the 

 cultivation of cotton and the system of compulsory labor were 

 both powerful concomitant circumstances which intensified the 

 physiological distinctions that climate primarily was eflecting in 

 southern communities. They came to think and act as one man. 

 In the late civil strife eight millions of people were wielded like a 

 single regiment on the field of battle. The free thought and 

 individual judgment of the north found little favor in the cotton 

 States. Legislation repelled northern immigration. Year by 

 year intercommunication between different sections of the south 

 became less, and society was fast tending to the same stereotyped 

 condition which has been found in Asia. 



The antagonism between the two sections of our counlry was as 



