than we have to blame them for their parentage.

You do not know the forces that have given direction to the lives of
others; if so, you might know why one is a member of this or that
church, this or that political party, why one lives north, another
south, one on the land, another on the sea.

Some of you may differ with me, but I believe if General Grant had
been born in the South, reared and educated in the South, his father
had owned a cotton plantation and many slaves, General Grant would
have been a Confederate General in the Civil War; while Robert E. Lee
if born, reared and educated in New England would have been a Union
General. If my opinion is correct, if all you northern people had
lived down south, and we southern people had lived north, we would
have gotten the better of the conflict instead of you.

If yonder oak, that came from the finest acorn and promised to be the
monarch of the forest, was dwarfed by simply a drop of dew; if yonder
rolling river, bearing its commerce to sea, was turned seaward,
instead of lakeward, by simply a pebble thrown in the fountain-head;
why not have consideration for those whose circumstances and early
training set in motion convictions differing from ours. God did not
intend all the trees to be oaks, or that all the rivers should run in
one direction, but He did intend all to make up at last His one great
purpose.

Thomas F. Marshall in an address many years ago, to illustrate the
differences between people of different sections, said: "If you call a
Mississippian a liar, he will challenge you to a duel; call a
Kentuckian a liar, he will stab you with a bowie-knife or shoot you