Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/253

Rh North and South, to see the total condition of the people. Now at this moment there is no lack of cattle and corn and cloth in the United States, North or South, only they are differently distributed in the different parts of the land. But still there is a great excitement. Men think the nation is in danger, and for many years there has not been so great an outcry and alarm amongst the politicians. The cry is raised, "The Union is in danger!" and if the Union falls, we are led to suppose that everything falls. There will be no more Thanksgiving days; there will be anarchy and civil war, and the ruin of the American people! It is curious to see this material plenty, on the one side, and this political alarm and confusion on the other. This condition of alarm is so well known, that nothing more need be said about it at this moment.

Let me now come to the next point, and consider the Causes of our present condition. This will involve a consideration of the cause of our prosperity and of our alarm.

1. First, there are some causes which depend on God entirely; such as the nature of the country, soil, climate, and "the like; its minerals, and natural productions; its seas and harbours, mountains and rivers. In respect to these natural advantages, the country is abundantly favoured, but the North less so than the South. Tennessee, Virginia, and Alabama, certainly have the advantage over Maine, New Hampshire, and Ohio. That I pass by; a cause which depends wholly on God.

2. Then again, this is a wide and new country. We have room to spread. We have not to contend against old institutions, established a thousand years ago, and that is one very great advantage. I make no doubt that in crossing the ocean, our fathers helped forward the civilization of the world at least a thousand years ; I mean to say, it would have taken mankind a thousand years longer to reach the condition we have attained in New England, if the attempt had of necessity been made on the soil of the old world and in the face of its institutions.

3. Then, as a third thing, much depends on the peculiar national character. Well, the freemen in the North and South are chiefly from the same race, this indomitable Caucasian stock; mainly from the same composite stock,