Mr. Sumner, in his great speech, expatiated on the poverty of the South and the immense wealth of New England, and especially of Massachusetts. The productive industry of this State alone (he said) was three times greater than the whole cotton-growing labor of the South.
As he threatens us with the most horrible war that has ever been dreamed of, this is an item worth noting.—When the war begins, we shall know to what quarter to direct our footsteps for “rich booty.” We thank the gentleman for the information—for, in connexion with the miserable poverty of the south, it suggests a source of consolation in the midst of the appalling calamities with which he threatens us. For being so poor, we shall have little or nothing to lose; and having such a rich enemy, we shall have everything to hope and to gain. That is one of the universal comforts of poverty and philosophy, and we shall make the most of it. In fact we know no people who are fitter subjects for spoliation and plunder than those of Massachusetts. God Almighty never gave them anything but a miserable barren soil, fit only for goats to browse on; and the vast wealth they boast has been scraped together by starving themselves, and plunder, or driving sharp bargains with other people. The larger portion that they have, came from Virginia and the South. Sumner himself admits that he is a descendant of those who formerly kidnapped Africans, and carried on a profitable trade in human flesh and blood from the coast of Africa; and the money, which now inflames his insolence and rapacity, was derived from piracy. We will make him and the rest of his gang disgorge their ill-got gains. Let the war begin as soon as he and his confederates choose. It is just the sort of war that we like to have a hand in—the poor, who have nothing should to lose, against the rich, who have enough to supply all our wants, and defray the expenses of a glorious contest.
His warlike speech has turned our thoughts very much to this war—and we confess that the more we think of it, the better we like it. We are heartily sick and disgusted with the canting and the mercenary hypocrites of Yankeedom. This was will enable us to get rid of them, or turn the tables upon them, and render them a source of profit instead of expense. It will enable us to regain our own—pilfered from us by many a sharp transaction. It will enable to us to build up our country by the recapture of the millions of which we have been plundered. It will enable us to get rid of Yankee Presidents, and to preserve Anglo-Saxon freedom, by reviving the old connexion with the mother county. (Who would not rather be ruled over by a lady, Queen Vic, than any nasal-twanged gentlemen that Yankeeland can produce?) It will enable us, with the United States South, on one side, in close alliance with England, and Canada on the other, very speedily to bring these long-prayed sharpers to their senses by confining them to the starving soil on which they were born, and to the thin air around them.
But no more words—let the war begin. We pant—we are inpatient for the onset.
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