commercial half of Washington. And while Washington, as capital of the
United States, has certain physical and cosmopolitan advantages, not
only over Baltimore, but over every other city on this continent, it
must not be forgotten that, upon the other hand, every other city has
one vast advantage over Washington, namely, a comparative freedom from
politicians. To be sure, Congress did once move over to Baltimore and
sit there for several weeks, but that was in 1776, when the British
approached the Delaware in the days before the pork barrel was invented.

As a city Baltimore has marked characteristics. Though south of Mason
and Dixon's Line, and though sometimes referred to as the "metropolis of
the South" (as is New Orleans also), it is in character neither a city
entirely northern nor entirely southern, but one which partakes of the
qualities of both; where, in the words of Sidney Lanier, "the climates
meet," and where northern and southern thought and custom meet, as well.
This has long been the case. Thus, although slaves were held in
Baltimore before the Civil War, a strong abolitionist society was formed
there during Washington's first Administration, and the sentiment of the
city was thereafter divided on the slavery question. Thus also, while
the two candidates of the divided Democratic party who ran against
Lincoln for the presidency in 1860 were nominated at Baltimore, Lincoln
himself was nominated there by the Union-Republican party in 1864.

Speaking of the blending of North and South in Baltimore, you will, of
course, remember that the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment was attacked by a
mob as it passed through the city on the way to the Civil War. The
regiment arrived in Baltimore at the old President Street Station, which
was then the main station of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and which, now
used as a freight station, looks like an old war-time woodcut out of
_Harper's Weekly_. It was the custom in those days to hitch horses to