"Minnesota! My God! where is Minnesota? [Laughter] Minnesota!"
"Minnesota is away up on the sources of the Mississippi River, a beautiful territory, too, by the way—a beautiful State."
"A State?"
"Yes, has Senators in Congress, good ones, too. They're very fine men—very fine troops."
"How many men has she sent to this cruel war?"
"Well, I don't exactly know; somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 men, probably. Don't make any difference—all we want." [Laughter.]
"Well," says he, "now we must have been a set of fools to throw down the gage of battle to a country we didn't know the geography of! [Laughter and applause.] When I went to school that was the Northwest Territory, and the Northwest Territory—well," says he, "we looked upon that as away off, and didn't know anything about it. Fact is, we didn't know anything at all about it."
Said I: "My friend, think of it a moment. Down here in Georgia, one of the original thirteen States which formed this great Union of this country, you have stood fast. You have stood fast while the great Northwest has been growing with a giant's growth. Iowa to-day, my friend, contains more railroads, more turnpikes, more acres of cultivated land, more people, more intelligence, more schools, more colleges—more of everything which constitutes a refined and enlightened State—than the whole State of Georgia."
"My God!" says the man, "it's awful. I didn't dream of that."
"Well," says I, "look here, my friend, I was once a banker, and I have some knowledge of notes and indorsements, and so forth. Did you ever have anything to do with indorsements?"