Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/18

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head, ' ' as when I have seen this unhappy race, naked and house- less, almost starving in the streets, and aban- doned by all the world. Sir, I have seen, in the neighborhood of one of the most moral, religious and refined cities of the North, a family of free blacks driven to the caves of the rocks, and there obtaining a precarious existence from charity and plunder. When the gentleman from Massachusetts adopts and reiterates the old charge of weak- ness as resulting from slavery, I must be per- mitted to call for the proof of those blighting effects which he ascribes to its influence. I sus- pect that when the subject is closely examined, it will be found that there is not much force even in the plausible objection of the want of physical power in slave-holding States. The power of a country is compounded of its popu- lation and its wealth, and in modern times, where, from the very form and structure of so- ciety, by far the greater portion of the people must, even during the continuance of the most desolating wars, be employed in the cultivation of the soil and other peaceful pursuits, it may be well doubted whether slave-holding States, by reason of the superior value of their produc- tions, are not able to maintain a number of troops in the field fully equal to what could be supported by States with a larger white popula- tion, but not possesed of equal resources. 8