Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/110

90 currents of civilization developed under different natural influences. And these different currents have not ceased to run yet. We heard it said not very long ago that Virginia and North Carolina were in a very much worse social and political condition than Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. It may have appeared so at some time; and yet it was so only in appearance. The time is not far distant when you will see that the appliances and influences of northern civilization will pervade Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee almost as thoroughly as Maryland and Pennsylvania. The northernmost of the late slave States, however obstreperous the spirit of their people may appear to-day, will, only gradually to be sure, but inevitably, change for the better under the not congenial pressure of Northern influences. But those influences will grow weaker and weaker as you descend farther South into the semi-tropical portion of this Republic. There it will be far more difficult to eradicate or even seriously to modify the old spirit of violence, the old impatience of adverse opinions, the old propensity to use force in preference to patient reason, and all those disorderly tendencies which are still so evident in alarming transgressions. When we complain of the turbulent state of society there we mistake the nature of the case if we ascribe the whole evil exclusively to the traditions of slavery or the usual irregularities of life in thinly settled countries. These things certainly have aggravated the evil, but they have not produced it. They are rather symptoms than causes. Look over the globe and study the history and present condition of nations and you will find similar things more or less developed in all hot countries; the people passionate and of a turbulent disposition and more inclined to appeal to force than to patient argument, and averse to orderly acquiescence in deciding conflicts of opinion and interest. And thus it will at last