104
A VOICE FROM
Mayflower to see if some of the passengers
thereon could not claim the honor of having
been one of William the Conqueror's brigands,
when he killed the last of the Saxon kings
and, red-handed, stole his crown and his lands.
Thus the ideal from out the Southland brooded
over the nation and we sing less lustily than
of yore
' Kind hearts are more than coronets
And simple faith than Norman blood.'
Iii politics, the two great forces, commerce
and empire, which would otherwise have
shaped the destiny of the country, have been
made to pander and cater to Southern notions.
"Cotton is King" meant the South must be
allowed to dictate or there would be no fun.
Every statesman from 1830 to 1860 exhausted
his genius in persuasion and compromises to
smooth out her ruffled temper and gratify her
petulant demands. But like a sullen younger
sister, the South has pouted and sulked and
cried : " I won't play with you now; so there!"
and the big brother at the North has coaxed
and compromised and given in, and—ended
by letting her have her way Until 1860 she
had as her pet an institution which it was
death by the law to say anything about, except
that it was divinely instituted, inaugurated by
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