Thomas North

“ In 1771 North succeeded John Egerton as Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, being consecrated by Archbishop Cornwallis at Lambeth on 8 Sept. In 1774 he was translated to Worcester on the death of James Johnson, and in 1781 to Winchester on the death of John Thomas. Wraxall says that Lord North secured this see for his brother by urging his claims to the archbishopric of York, on the death of Dr. Drummond in 1777, against those of William Markham, bishop of Chester.
North seems to have been a dignified and generous man and popular in his dioceses. ”

“ I tell you that, while I believe with you in the doctrines of State rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery impulsive people as you are, for they live in cooler climates. ”

“ Which marks the meanest of the Highland race;
Warm hearts that burn alike in weal and woe,
As if the north wind fanned their bosoms’ glow!
But wide unlike their souls: old Norman’s eye
Was proudly savage ev’n in courtesy.
His sinewy shoulders—each, though aged and lean,
Broad as the curled Herculean head between,
His scornful lip, his eyes of yellow fire,
And nostrils that dilated quick with ire. [265]
With ever downward-slanting shaggy brows,
Marked the old lion you would dread to rouse.
Norman, in truth, had led his earlier life
In raids of red revenge and feudal strife ”

“ They enter, and there find the doomed one at rest with the loved ones, in the unconscious bliss of sleep, while the moonlight shimmers from the light breeze-waving trees, through the open lattice, in fantastic shapes of light and shade, upon the chamber wall, just o'er their pillowed heads, so soft and so silvery. ”

“ It may be further characterized as the blindest, most unreasonable, hateful and hating, and most desperately wicked passion of the human soul. It casts its blighting mildew over everything it touches. ”

“ He never lacked courage, but frequently lost control of his temper. North describes him as a ‘cunning Parliament man.’ He was somewhat hard and grasping in his dealings, but entirely free from the fashionable vices of his time, and, in spite of his prosecution of the bishops, seems to have been affectionately attached to the church of England. His portraits represent him as strikingly handsome. One was formerly at the Town Hall, Chester, and an engraving of it was published in Yorke's ‘Royal Tribes of Wales.’ A bad portrait hangs in the speaker's house at Westminster. ”

“ Because in our five years' Texas experience we met this monster of the human heart in shapes and phases, deeper, darker, and more vile than we had ever dreamed of before, or could have dreamed if we had never seen Texas. There this barbarous element assumes a more lawless and criminal form than in any other country we ever saw. There it hesitates not at doing personal violence to its object. And so much the more as they value human life less than other people. ”

“ It is an art, if not the art of arts, which requires study and practice; as much so as to become a first-class tradesman or artist of any kind. One has to pass the trying ordeal of social gymnastics. The beauty of social elegance is like the "beauty of holiness." It attracts the admiration of most, excites the envy of many, the jealousy and hate of the mean, and is a ruling power in every department of Church and State, and of society. This was the strong secret agency in the hands of the South—the "suaviter in modo" that gave them leading sway so long in Congress, and with the Government. ”

“ To me, this is no chimera of an overwrought imagination, but the serious, sober tone of destiny that comes thundering along the pathway of nations, and having shattered many nations, and buried them in the dust of the sepulchral past, no better fate may await ours. ”

“ You and I both hail from adjoining counties in the old Empire State as our fatherland, and are now citizens of the Empire State of the great Northwest. The one gave us birth, and nursed us to the years of early manhood. The other is our adopted State, where we have reached the strength and vigor of intellectual manhood. There we knew and enjoyed the blessings of freedom—freedom of opinion and of speech. Here the same, and not one degree north or south of the same latitude. ”

“ Next year (995) he made himself master of the Norwegian kingdom, and succeeded in inducing all the Norwegian chiefs, north and south, to become converts to Christianity. After a reign of five years full of romantic adventures,195 the Norwegian hero fell in a great sea-fight against the combined forces of his former ally, Sweyn of Denmark, and his namesake, Olaf of Sweden. For fourteen years (1000–14) Norway lay under the yoke of the confederate kings. The increase of power thus obtained by Denmark may have had something to do with the success of Sweyn’s schemes for the conquest of England. ”

“ A half shuddering fear came over the ladies in that partial night, and each one leans a little nearer her companion. They have penetrated the dark way half a mile or more, when suddenly the mules stop, affrighted, and begin to back. ”

“ And I now feel bound to say to you, though in confidence, what for wise political reasons I have not dared to utter to any political friend, that I more than fear—I believe—this Government is going to ruin! Presaging wrath is borne on every breeze, and tells of the coming woe! ”

“ A third party believed in preserving the Union at almost all hazards; even with the loss of the peculiar rights of the South. They argued and urged that Southern rights could be maintained by fighting for them, if need be "in the Union and under the old flag." This party was quite numerous.
A fourth party said, but dare not say it very loud, "Let slavery slide, if need be it is not worth shedding blood over, but let us have the Union. Besides, the sentiment of all mankind is against our servile system, and history will dig its grave at last." ”

“ The system of forced labor no longer overshadows and oppresses the spirit of progress and improvement there. The inveterate slowness of the country must give way before the advancing step of reform, and as increasing light breaks in, bringing to public view the ponderous follies of the past industrial history of the country, new ideas will be allowed and patronized ”

“ Gaston started as Tom uttered the last sentence.
“With you, boy, it’s all plain sailin’. You’re the best looking chap in the county. I was a dandy when I was young. It does me good to look at you if you don’t care nothin’ about fine clothes. Then you’re as sharp as a razor. There ain’t a man in No’th Caliny that can stand up agin you on the stump. I’ve heard ’em all. You ’ll be the Governor of this state.”
That was always the climax of Tom’s prophetic flattery. He could think of no grander end of a human life than to crown it in the Governor’s Palace of North Carolina. ”

“ Some of you laugh to scorn the idea of bloodshed as a result of secession, and jocularly propose to drink all the blood that will ever flow in consequence of it! But let me tell you what is coming on the heels of secession. The time will come when your fathers and husbands, your sons and brothers, will be herded together like sheep and cattle at the point of the bayonet ”

“ We landed at New Orleans on the 21st of the month, which was the day before the vote on Secession was to be taken in the State of Louisiana. When time is not an important consideration with the traveler, we know of no more delightful voyage than by a first-class steamboat down the "Father of Waters" to the Crescent City—a palace on the waters, in a delicious climate, through a magnificent country in the "Sunny South," sweeping from thirty-seven to thirty degrees north latitude, but ten hundred and forty miles by the meandering river. ”

“ When the people see that, in the matter of grape culture, a few acres cultivated in the vine will yield as large a profit as a cotton plantation ten times as large, and requiring ten times the labor, many more will be tempted to plant vineyards and reap the easy reward ”

“ But believing, as a matter of the deepest faith with him, and the most unquestionably certain teaching of Christ, and what appeared to most people Utopian, that the true church on earth was intended by its divine Founder to be like its counterpart in heaven—a vital, visible, organic unity—he could not, at any time in his life, long yield himself to sectarian embraces. ”

“ One of the driving wheels of the great commercial wagon of the United States stands at Galveston, and the steam of progress is driving the mighty vehicle westward, keeping pace with the "star of empire."
When that network of railroads which but for secession would now have been thrown over all Texas, east, west, north and south, tapping the wheat regions of Northern Texas, the lumber regions of Eastern Texas, the stock regions of Western Texas, and the cotton and sugar regions of Southern Texas ”

“ Still a fifth party opposed secession under any circumstances, on the ground of bad policy, and inexpediency. They said, secession is suicide, the very course to pursue by which to swamp and lose our rights. Secession will be a stupendous failure, and we shall lose by it the very thing we propose thereby to defend and save. ”

“ After the war I intend giving myself to the legal profession, and shall not return to the pulpit. I am keeping a spotted book. All persons who refuse to go into the army, or evade [82] the conscript law by any dodge or subterfuge whatever, their names shall go down in the spotted book, to receive my special attention after the war, personally, professionally, and politically, and I swear it here and now; they shall be hunted in town, in the city, through the wilderness, out of the country, and peradventure a worse fate may befall them! ”

“ If we go round the globe, neither in present nor past history will be found this race doing the common out-door labor in any countries lying between the equator and thirty-five degrees north latitude; and the supposition is reasonable that they never will in the ages to come; unless in course of time a radical climatic transformation should take place, driving the south pole thirty degrees over into Asia, and bringing the north pole down thirty degrees nearer the equator. ”

“ EFFECT OF CLIMATE ON TASTES AND APPETITES.
It is worthy of note and may be remarked that one's tastes and appetites undergo great changes in passing from a high northern clime to a southern; so much so that to his own surprise one finds himself literally accomplishing the experience of "loving what he once hated, and hating what he once loved." For example, buttermilk and clabber are delicious to the taste there; but few people ever think of them in the North except in association with food for swine. ”

“ Indeed the Romish Church of Mexico—and no other is there—seemed to act and move on this broad assumption, as she does everywhere, when permitted to act out her nature freely, that truth and right are not absolute things as they relate to mankind, but are to be held subject to her dictum and disposal. ”

“ Scores of thousands of men took leave of absence during that time—we will not stigmatize them deserters—went home and managed to keep out of the way of the ubiquitous conscript officer, or, by collusion with him, secured freedom from molestation by him. ”

“ My regard for [12] the personal welfare of yourself and yours is too warm and deep, not to regret seeing you float to the Southern extreme of American society at the present juncture of our National affairs.
"The loud blast of secession is already heard in the South, and I am impressed that the Southern sisterhood of States will unite in a desperate effort to dissolve this Union and destroy the General Government. And that no renewal of compromise effort can save the tremendous shock of war, between the North and South, that portends in the political heavens. ”

“ And as one stood there, on the hurricane-deck, or "texas," of some immense steamer, and looked up and down, over and around those crescent-laid wharves, one was moved to ask in wonder, whence and for what these immense and almost endless stores of sugar, molasses, flour, pork, corn, potatoes, fruits, etc., and what mean these dense masses [47] of earnest-looking people, hurrying to and fro on the streets. Ah! it is the 21st day of January, 1861, and the next day was fraught with the momentous and grave issues of an election on the question of secession. ”

“ As a jury advocate, as a platform speaker, as a popular orator on political and other occasions, it is conceded by those who knew him best, professionally and otherwise, that he never had his superior, and few if any equals in the whole Northwest. ”

“ My dear Madam, you defend yourself capitally well, and I perceive you are not only an intelligent lady, and hence, on this score, we fear you in our cause all the more, if disposed on seeming occasion, to do damage, which is liable to come at any time by the accidents of war, but I feel bound to say that I believe that you are a well-meaning lady, though not patriotic toward the country of your adoption. ”

“ If the labor question of that country is ever properly settled and harmonized—in regard to which we are more hopeful than doubtful from [61] recent data—the leading productive interest of Texas will continue to be that of cotton, particularly in the southern-central section. But we think the future will show that the strongest rival interest will be grape culture and wine making. ”