North and South

“ Who that knows the North can ever deny its lure? Wherever you be, it will call and call to you. In the sluggish South you will hear it, will long for the keen tingle of its silver days, the vaster glory of its star-strewn nights. In the city's heart it will come to you till you hunger for its big, clean spaces, its racing rivers, its purple tundras. In the homes of the rich its voice will seek you out, and you will ache for your lonely camp-fire, a sunset splendouring to golden death, the night where the silence clutches and the heavens vomit forth white fire. ”

“ For many years we of the South have been dwelling amicably with those of the North—this is as it should be. We are, united, the greatest country on the face of God’s footstool. And to both the North and the South belongs the credit. ”

“ To the North He gave short summers, bleak skies, the rocks of New England hills, the thin soil of New York, the sand dunes of Michigan. To the South He gave sunny Virginia, the riches of the Gulf States, the fruitful skies, the abundant rains, the treasures of the cotton, the sugar and the rice. Above all, God sifted all the nations of the Old World to find blood rich enough to people the Southern States. The men who laid the foundations of the great South were people of a heroic type, giants and heroes of fortitude. ”

“ The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire ”

“ The North is rich, never so rich; the South is poor, never before so poor. The population of the North is nearly double that of the South. The industry of the North, in diversity, in forwardness and productiveness, in all the machinery and education required for manufacturing, is half a century in advance of the South. Churches in the North crown every hill, and schools swarm in every neighborhood; while the South has but scattered lights, at long distances, like light-houses twinkling along the edge of a continent of darkness. ”

“ Small wonder if, amid its countless tragic memorials, the South does not forget. The strange thing is that bitterness has gone so soon; that remembering the agonies of war and the abuses of reconstruction, the South does not to-day hate the North as violently as ever. If to err is human, the North has, in its treatment of the South, richly proved its humanness; and if forgiveness is divine, the South has, by the same token, attained something like divinity. ”

“ In the north, such a soul would have something restless or savage about it. The daughter of the south, nourished by the fruits of the earth, by the warmth of the sun, by the deliciousness of the air and the sky—as her yearnings lulled to a quiet pensiveness. ”

“ How the North and the South have grown since the war; the great West.—Since the war the united North and South have grown and prospered [1] as never before. At the South many new and flourishing towns and cities have sprung up. Mines of coal and iron have been opened, hundreds of cotton-mills and factories have been built, and long lines of railroads have been constructed.
At the West changes equally great have taken place. Cities have risen up in the wilderness, mines of silver and gold have been opened, and immense farms and cattle ranches [2] produce food enough to feed all America. ”

“ In the North all was life, enterprise, industry, mechanical skill. In the South there was dependence on black labour, and an idle extravagance which was mistaken for elegant luxury—tumble-down old hackney-coaches, such as had not been seen north of the Potomac for half a century, harness never cleaned, ungroomed horses, worked at the mill one day and sent to town the next, badly furnished houses, bad cookery, imperfect education. No parallel could be drawn between them and the Northern States at all. ”

“ The North should cease to vex the South, and the South should cease to vex the North, and patriotic men North and South, should devise some means, by which the end might be accomplished at some future day. The question now presents itself to every friend of humanity—to every philanthropist ”

“ North and South and East and West, the message travels fast!
East and West and North and South, the bugles blare and blast!
North and West and East and South, the battle-cry grows plain!
West and South and North and East, it echoes back again!
[Pg 177]
For the East is calling Westwards, and the North is speaking South,
There's a threat on ev'ry curling lip, an oath in ev'ry mouth ”

“ The North and South have begun fighting like two bull-dogs, and it's just a question which has the longer wind and the more endurance. The chances are all in favor of the North. I shall not throw myself and property away for the sake of a bare possibility. ”

“ A Glance at the South.—There is something interesting, as you go through the South at the present time, in watching the progress of events. It is a region, speaking of it as a whole, that strikes the Northern man with many peculiarities. One is, where is the population that made that stern resistance to the Northern arms? The cities are all small; there are no villages; whence came that force that withstood us so many years, and withstood us with such might? And then again, you are struck with many things so different from what we find at the North. ”

“ These Northern men know nothing of the South, and with them it is omne ignotum pro minimo. The West Point professor listened to them with a quiet smile, and exchanged glances with me now and then, as much as to say, “Did you ever hear such fools in your life?”
But the conviction of ultimate success is not less strong here than it is in the South. The difference between these gentlemen and the Southerners is, [141] that in the South the leaders of the people, soldiers and civilians, are all actually under arms, and are ready to make good their words by exposing their bodies in battle. ”

“ Referring to social conditions, the most marked difference which I have noticed between the North and South, and really, it seems to me, the only difference of importance, is that the South has separate schools for white and colored, whereas in the North the school is not looked upon as a social institution. ”

“ The south mourns their loss; if they go west, the north will be envious and inconsolable. As to themselves—north, south, east, or west—they care little to which point of the compass the breeze of their destiny may waft them. ”

“ If only the South would go up North and see what they are doing there, and how they are doing it, and ask them to show them how, it would make a good deal of difference. And then the North should come South and see what nice people we are, and how we do that! ”

“ And yet, the north prospers in every sense, while the south,—what is the future of the South? The west, noble, generous, and free from the traits which mark a nation of mere traffickers, is just what the south would be, were it free from the Black Race. Think of that, friend Randolph! You may glean a bit of solid truth from the disconnected remarks of an old traveler. ”

“ The North invents, the South supplies the tools, the East the hands, the West the patrons and critics of the work, while out of the yellow heart of the city comes the gold, the incentive to the North, South, and East. ”

“ The north in an unrestrained intercourse with the south, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter, great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise, and precious materials of manufacturing industry.—The south, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the same agency of the north, sees its agriculture grow, and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the north, it finds its particular navigation invigorated ”

“ Calculations and conjectures—what may the East do without the South, and what may the South do without the East?—sneers, menaces, reproaches, and recriminations—all tend to the same fatal end. What can the East do without the South? What can the South do without the East? They may do much; they may exhibit to the curiosity of political anatomists, and the pity and wonder of the world, the disjecta membra—the sundered, bleeding limbs of a once gigantic body instinct with life, and strength, and vigor. ”

“ I say the South is the enemy of the North. England is the rival of the North, a powerful rival, often dangerous; sometimes a mean and dishonourable rival. But the South is our foe,—far more dangerous, meaner, and more dishonourable. England keeps treaties ; the South breaks faith. ”

“ All our sympathies are for the North, but they in no way diminish our admiration for the South.... How not to admire the Southerners, while regretting that such rare and high qualities had not been dedicated to an irreproachable cause! What men, and also, and especially, what women! Daughters, wives, mothers, those women of the South have revived, in the midst of the nineteenth century, the patriotism, devotion, abnegation of the Roman ones in the heyday of the republic. ”

“ The enthusiasm for the Southern cause among all the people is most remarkable,—the sight of the flag waving from the carriage windows drew all the population of the hamlets and the workers in the field, black and white, to the side of the carriages to cheer for Jeff. ”

“ It is a still greater joy to exchange the harsh, staring colors of the north for the soft luminosity of the south, as you zigzag down from the bare snows to the pines, from the pines to the chestnuts, from the chestnuts to the trellised vineyards. ”

“ The heart of the People, North and South, is for the Union. ”

“ By taking a sort of inventory of the agricultural products of the free and slave States in 1850, we now propose to correct a most extraordinary and mischievous error into which the people of the South have unconsciously fallen. Agriculture, it is well known, is the sole boast of the South; and, strange to say, many pro-slavery Southerners, who, in our latitude, pass for intelligent men, are so puffed up with the idea of our importance in this respect, that they speak of the North as a sterile region, unfit for cultivation, and quite dependent on the South for the necessaries of life! ”

“ The north excels in business, but the south leads in romance. The north opens wide the door of opportunity to every man who comes to its borders with willing hands and eager brain, and commands him to get busy. The south opens a door, too, but it is the door of hospitality, and it bids the stranger enter in, not so much for what he can give, but for what he can take in the way of welcome. ”

“ The first and most natural way of lighting the houses of the American colonists, both in the North and South, was by the pine-knots of the fat pitch-pine, which, of course, were found everywhere in the greatest plenty in the forests. ”

“ In the short sentence which declared that there should always exist, in every community, one ever-sunken and permanently degraded class, the great point of difference between the South and North was set forth in a form intelligible to the humblest capacity, and it was understood—how well has been shown in many a bloody field. ”

“ The secret things of darkness are coming to light, and the question will be decided rightly, I firmly believe. And the South is to be pitied, as all hardened and blinded wrong-doers should be! I believe the North will show herself a noble foe, if foe the South determines to make her. ”

“ Southern men are not favorably disposed towards Northern improvements in any department, no matter whether it be trade, commerce, or agriculture: hence they have no such farms South as they have North, even in portions of their country where the soil is equally susceptible of improvement. ”

“ May 27th.—I visited several of the local companies, their drill-grounds and parades; but few of the men were present, as nearly all are under orders to proceed to the Camp at Tangipao or to march to Richmond. Privates and officers are busy in the sweltering streets purchasing necessaries for their journey. As one looks at the resolute, quick, angry faces around him, and hears but the single theme, he must feel the South will never yield to the North, unless as a nation which is beaten beneath the feet of a victorious enemy. ”

“ The growth of reconciliation between the North and the South is the slow growth of years, and the work of generations. When any man, North or South, in a public place takes occasion to talk in a mellow and mawkish way of the great love he now has for his old enemy, watch him. ”

“ May it never see the light; people are much more influenced by such things than by mere logic, and oh, what would befall the nation should our Northern excitement against slavery cease, and should we leave the whole subject to the South and to God! "What if people should come to believe that the Southerners—fifteen or sixteen States of this Union—are as humane, Christian, and conscientious as the North! ”

“ In the beginning of time, when, as now, man lived by families, and not by tribes or nations, they were placed in a genial clime, where earth fed them untilled, and the balmy air enwrapt their reposing limbs with warmth more pleasant than beds of down. The south is the native place of the human race; the land of fruits, more grateful to man than the hard-earned Ceres of the north,—of trees, whose boughs are as a palace-roof, of couches of roses, and of the thirst-appeasing grape. We need not there fear cold and hunger.
Look at England! the grass shoots up high in the meadows ”

“ Yet New England is reproached with cowardice and ingratitude to her Southern benefactors! If one man were to knock another down with a broad axe, in the attempt to brush a fly from his face, and then blame him for not being sufficiently thankful, it would exactly illustrate the relation between the North and the South on this subject. ”

“ The citizens of Northern States do not correctly understand your section. They should visit and carefully look into the capacities of your States. Nothing dispels illusions like contact and personal examination. The North is full of active, energetic, industrious men inured to labor, who do not know [30] what advantages you offer or they would flood into and buy up your unoccupied lands and form a splendid factor in the New South now forming. Would the Northern settlers be hospitably received? At the North this would be a controlling question. ”