Here, then, history and theory both agree. New England, colonized by Englishmen, homogeneous in a remarkable degree, has been the only thoroughly pure nationality within our territories. The few stray Englishmen of education in the Southern colonies, the much greater number of convicts, the increasing immigration of French, Irish, Scotch, and German settlers, have not only failed to overwhelm this compact and thoroughly alive minority, but have been formed and moulded into shape by it. In protesting against New England, the Vallandighams and Coxes are only proving the nullity of 'expunging resolutions.' 'Can they make that not to be which has been?' Until they can recall the past, annihilate the past inhabitants of these States, and from stones raise up some other progenitors for the present generation, they cannot destroy the influence of New England.
And yet we are called upon to believe that the race which has thus done the greatest work of the past two centuries was the random aggregation of opposite and mongrel races, the offspring of ignorance, poverty, and crime. We are to believe that while the pure blood of English gentlemen in Virginia has produced not only the gentlemanly vices of pride, treachery, and falsehood in the leaders, but the ignoble faults of crime and debasement in the 'poor trash'—that some occult influence of climate has advanced an entire community at the North far above the position of its progenitors—that while the gentle Cavalier has been overcome by the seductive charms of luxury and repose, the ignoble Puritan has thrown off his degrading antecedents, and has obtained the control of the allied races. The servant has become the master, the scum of all nations has overpowered the choicest offspring of that race which Macaulay terms 'the hereditary rulers of mankind.'
These conclusions, so eminently logical and convincing, we must believe, or we must doubt the pure blood of the aristocracy of the Slave States.
Is it not more reasonable to believe, as facts daily prove, that New England was colonized from the hardiest and best portion of the English stock? That our ancestors, accepting the state of English society as a fact, neither invited nor repelled the accession of the gentry. That many of that class did join in the enterprise, and that, where they were worthy, they received the slight preference which is accorded to personal advantages of any sort. That the bulk of the colonists were separated from this class by slight barriers, that many of them were excluded only by a want of the necessary property to maintain the position, and that on this new territory these distinctions were speedily forgotten—not because the higher class deteriorated, but because the lower, having but a slight advance to make, soon stood on an actual equality with them.
If the sympathy of England were now as desirable and as strongly expected as it was two years ago, I might urge the matter further. As it is, it seems sufficient to overthrow the claims of Southerners, based upon false pretences, and supported only by unblushing effrontery, and to refute the slanders which have been thrown upon an entire section of the loyal States.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Yet our author had already shown that Dennis, Cromwell's captain, 'contrived a stratagem which betrayed the country. He had got a considerable parcel of goods aboard, which belonged to two of the Council, and found a method of informing them of it. By this means they were reduced to the dilemma, either of submitting or losing their goods. This caused factions amongst them, so that at last'—we blush to add—'the colony surrendered—and saved the goods.' En dat Virginia quintam. The fifth crown had its price, even for a 'usurper.'
[14] Virginia was the other of which he was writing.