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 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 immigration into the free States; and such was the rush of settlers from abroad to the polar side of 36° 30', and for the cheap and rich lands of the North-West 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 descendants of immigrants, which the two sections had received from the Old World since this grant was made, amounted to no less than 7,000,000 souls more for the North than for the South. This increase destroyed the balance of power between the sections, placed the South in Congress hopelessly in the minority, and gave the reins of the Government over into the hands of the Northern factions. Thus, the two hundred and seventy millions of acres of the finest land on the continent, which Virginia gave to the Government to hold in trust as a common fund, was so managed as to increase Northern votes and power. Nor was this all. Large grants of land, amounting to many millions of acres, were made from this domain to certain Northern States, for their railways and other works of internal improvement, for their schools and corporations; but not an acre to Virginia.
In consequence of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and the Orders in Council, the embargo and the war with Great Britain which followed in 1812, the people of the whole country suffered greatly for the want of manufactured articles, many of which had become necessaries of life. Moreover, it was at that time against the laws of England for any artisan or piece of machinery used in her workshops to be sent to this country. Under these circumstances it was thought wise to encourage
