Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/446

 440 Southern Historical Society Papers.

highest rank in their respective navies. But what I know so little, I do not wish in my ignorance to make distinctions. I have intro- duced the subject merely to express a long-felt opinion, viz: that it required a higher and nobler patriotism for our sailors to leave the navy than for our soldiers to leave the army, for the following very obvious reasons: ist. The flag to the sailor not only told him in foreign lands of his own country, but it spoke of his far-off home, with all its endearments. It was hard for him to give up the old flag with all these sacred associations. 2d. Our army officers gave up generally subordinate positions to command regiments, brigades, divisions, and armies. The naval officers gave up fine positions on great ships of war to serve in little tubs of vessels, of which they must have been ashamed. 3d. The true sailor is a sailor and not a land-lubber. He never gets off his sea-legs on shore. Our patri- otic naval officers knew certainly that the failure of our cause would drive them from sea, and compel them to seek business on land, in which they would feel as awkward as Commodore Trunnion on the fox-hunt. All honor to the noble men who put country above self and self-interest. The Old South had thousands of unselfish men, but I put these in the forefront of them all.

4th. Indebtedness of the Nation to the Old South. The statesmen of the Old South were all broad-gauge men, with nothing narrow and contracted about them. They had fully the instincts of the Japhetic race for land-grabbing, and they were eager to fulfil the prophecy in regard to the enlargement of Japhet's borders. We find, accordingly, that every inch of territory that has been added to the area belonging to the original thirteen States has been added under Southern Presidents, and all has been acquired, save bleak Alaska, during the " Era of the Domination of the Slave-power." When Jefferson came to the executive chair the whole Union com- prised but 830,789 square miles. By his wise policy and diplomacy, he won, without one drop of bloodshed, for the paltry sum of $15,- 000,000, that vast territory out of which have been carved nine great States and six large Territories, embracing in all 1,282,005 square miles, or 415,216 square miles more than the United States possessed before his administration. That is, he doubled the area of the United States, and had this respectable slice left over. Mr. Blaine, in his recent speech at St. Louis, said in reference to this grand achievement: "In the annals of American greatness, Jefferson de- serves to be ranked as the second Washington.

Monroe found a troublesome neighbor in Florida, and by the pay-