Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/61

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Maury's Vindication of the South.
53

Union. This compromise was to the effect that the Southern people should thereafter waive their right to go with their slaves into any part of the common territory north of the parellel of 36° 30'. Thus was surrendered up to the North for settlement, at her own time and in her own way, more than two-thirds of the entire public domain, with equal rights with the South in the remainder.

That posterity may fairly appreciate the extent of this exaction by the North, with the sacrifice made by the South to satisfy it, maintain the public faith and preserve the Union, it is necessary to refer to a map of the country, and to remember that at that time neither Texas, New Mexico, California nor Arizona belonged to the United States; that the country west of the Mississippi which fell under that compromise is that which was acquired from France in the purchase of Louisiana, and which includes West Minnesota, the whole of Iowa, Arkansas, the Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washington and Oregon, embracing an area of 1,360,000 square miles. Of this the South had the privilege of settling Arkansas alone, or less than four per cent. of the whole. The sacrifice thus made by the South, for the sake of the Union, will be more fully appreciated when we reflect that under the Constitution Southern gentlemen had as much right, and the same right to go into the Territories with their slaves, that the men of the North had to carry with them there their apprentices and servants. Though this arrangement was so prejudicial to the South, though the Supreme Court decided it to be unconstitutional, null and void, the Southern people were still willing to stand by it; but the North would not. Backed by majorities in Congress, she only became more and more aggressive. Furthermore, the magnificent country given by Virginia to the Union came to be managed in the political interests of the North. It was used for the encouragement of European emigration, and its settlement on her side of that parallel, while the idea was sought to be impressed abroad by false representations that South of 36° 30" in this country out-door labor is death to the white man, and that throughout the South generally labor was considered degrading. Such was the rush of settlers from abroad to the polar side of 36° 30" and for the cheap and rich lands of the northwest territory, that the population of the North was rapidly and vastly increased—so vastly that when the war of 1861 commenced, the immigrants and the decendants of immigrants which the two sections had received from the Old World since this