INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE. 417 



position, such an one that he need not look to the doctor to save 

 his body, nor to the lawyer to save his civil rights, nor to the 

 minister to save his soul, but work out his own salvation in every 

 respect. One grand object for which we come here is, that we may 

 be taught to think, to reflect, and that nothing, however brilliantly 

 set forth, nor whether it come from the President of a college, or a 

 professor, or a farmer, or a half farmer, or a quarter farmer, as I 

 am, — thut nothing that may be uttered shall" be accepted as Gospel 

 by me or by you, unless it has the " Thus saith the Lord " in it, — 

 unless we see it clearly from our our own reflection ; and if I have 

 not brains enough to see it, I will go hoine and study into it, but 

 still keep my independence in regard to thinking and accepting 

 what is offered. 



Sam'l Taylor. I listened to the lecture with great delight, but 

 there were some statements in it that my own observation lead 

 me to call in question. What was said with regard to the influ- 

 ence of climate may all be true as respects the white race, but as 

 the last speaker has said, it certainly has not had that influence 

 upon the aborigines of this country. I have, in the course of my 

 life, visited most of the tribes west of the Mississippi river, (not 

 the far west, but west of what were then the States and new ter- 

 ritories of the United States,) from Minnesota to Texas, and it 

 was a fact, conceded on all hands, that as we approached the 

 south, the Indians became more intelligent. There never was an 

 Indian tribe that invented a language except the Cherokees. I 

 visited twenty different tribes, and if I had capacity to judge, the 

 further I travelled south the more intelligent were the Indians. I 

 believe it is universally conceded that the Mexican Indians, at the 

 time that country was invaded by Cortez, were by far the most 

 intelligent tribe ever found in this country. They live in a warm 

 climate, and as we approach the north, the Indians decrease in 

 intelligence, until we come to the Esquimaux, who are elevated 

 but a little above the brute. The influence of climate may be 

 different upon a white, but such is the fact in regard to the Indian. 

 In my travels at the south, I never observed that the educated 

 men there differed much from the educated men of the north. 

 Some of our greatest statesmen and most profound thinkers lived 

 at the south. Chief Justice Marshall was as sound a jurist, and 

 Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other southern men whom I 

 might name, as profound thinkers as we have had in the north, 

 I do not believe that the theory presented to us in regard to the 

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