Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/124

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS imposed upon the South, and an undue propor- tion of its proceeds appropriated to the North. And the last is a system of political measures by which the original character of the govern- ment has been radically changed. I propose to bestow upon each of these, in the order they stand, a few remarks- with the view of showing that it is owing to the action of this government that the equilibrium between the two sections has been destroyed, and the whole powers of the system centered in a sectional majorit> I have not included the territory recently acquired by the treaty with Mexico. The North is making the most strenuous efforts to appro- priate the whole to herself, by excluding the South from every foot of it. If she should suc- ceed, it w^ill add to that from which the South has already been excluded 526,078 square miles, and would increase the whole which the North has appropriated to herself to 1,764,023, not including the portion that she may succeed in excluding us from in Texas. To sum up the whole, the United States, since they declared their independence, have acquired 2,373,046 square miles of territory, from which the North will have excluded the South, if she should suc- ceed in monopolizing the newly-acquired Terri- tories, about three-fourths of the whole, leaving to the South but about one-fourth. Such is the first and great cause that has destroyed the equilibrium between the two sections in the gov- ernment 114