Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/126

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS ing immigration from all quarters to that sec- tion. This, combined with the great primary cause, amply explains why the North has acquired a preponderance in every department of the gov- ernment by its disproportionate increase of pop- ulation and States. The former, as has been sho^Ti, has increased, in fifty years, 2,400,000 over that of the South. This increase of popula- tion during so long a period is satisfactorily accounted for by the number of immigrants, and the increase of their descendants, which have been attracted to the Northern section from Europe and the South, in consequence of the advantages derived from the causes assigned. If they had not existed — if the South had re- tained all the capital which has been extracted from her by the fiscal action of the government ; and if it had not been excluded by the Ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise, from the region lying between the Ohio and the Missis- sippi Rivers, and between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains north of 36° 30'— it scarcely admits of a doubt that it would have divided the immigration with the North, and by retaining her own people would have at least equaled the North in population under the cen- sus of 1840, and probably under that about to be taken. She would also, if she had retained her equal rights in those territories, have main- tained an equality in the number of States with the North, and have preserved th© equilibrium 116