20 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



interested in tlic institutions and habits of the South. And we 

 may add, that so long as that generation bore an active part in 

 the affairs of our government, its compromises were maintained, 

 and the different sections of the Union were at peace with each 

 other. It was not till the Union, by the incentives it offered to 

 enterprise, and the security it furnished for all who had gathered 

 within its fold, had begun to develop the almost boundless 

 resources of wealth and moral and physical power which a 

 virgin soil, a favorable climate, a region unrivalled for its advan- 

 tages to commerce and the arts, and a free government could 

 not fail to bring into active energy, that men were found ready 

 to discard the principles upon which the constitution was 

 framed, and to sacrifice the prosperity of this great nation for 

 some fancied advantage to a section of lier territory. 



We hear the question asked every day, what has wrought 

 this change? Why do we see a whole section arrayed in arms 

 to overthrow by brute force, the very government that gave 

 them life, and has given them the capacity of making their 

 hostility to its integrity formidable ? Why are all the ancient 

 feelings of sympathy and kindness towards brothers of a common 

 blood, with a common history and what had seemed to be a 

 common destiny, now changed to bitterness and hate? Slavery, 

 of which we have heard so much, is not a new institution, nor 

 are its merits a new subject of discussion, or a new element of 

 discord. These discussions and these feelings have, doubtless, 

 become greatly intensified since the constitution was adopted. 

 But no one, I imagine, would think of ascribing this disastrous 

 revolution of sectional feeling to this as the only exciting cause. 

 The whole number of slave owners in the country is said not to 

 exceed some three hundred thousand, and it is difficult to sup- 

 pose that twelve millions of people would be ready to rush into 

 a civil war simply to avenge the hard names which writers and 

 orators at the North have, of late, applied somewhat liberally to 

 the institution of involuntary labor. 



Nor, powerful as may be the influence of noisy demagogues 

 in a community, with few schools and a limited supply of news- 

 papers, have we a right to suppose that mere words, liowcver 

 angry, could have exasperated reasonable men to deeds of such 

 folly and wickedness, or combine them in the work of tearing 



