hostility to any section would be morally unfit for the station, and
surely an unsafe depositary if not a treacherous guardian of the
inheritance with which we are blessed.

No one, more than myself; recognizes the binding force of the
allegiance which the citizen owes to the State of his citizenship, but
that State being a party to our compact, a member of our union, fealty
to the federal Constitution is not in opposition to, but flows from
the allegiance due to one of the United States. Washington was not
less a Virginian when he commanded at Boston; nor did Gates or Greene
weaken the bonds which bound them to their several States, by their
campaigns in the South. In proportion as a citizen loves his own
State, will he strive to honor by preserving her name and her fame
free from the tarnish of having failed to observe her obligations, and
to fulfil her duties to her sister States. Each page of our history is
illustrated by the names and the deeds of those who have well
understood, and discharged the obligation. Have we so degenerated,
that we can no longer emulate their virtues? Have the purposes for
which our Union was formed, lost their value? Has patriotism ceased to
be a virtue, and is narrow sectionalism no longer to be counted a
crime? Shall the North not rejoice that the progress of agriculture in
the South has given to her great staple the controlling influence of
the commerce of the world, and put manufacturing nations under bond to
keep the peace with the United States? Shall the South not exult in
the fact, that the industry and persevering intelligence of the North,
has placed her mechanical skill in the front ranks of the civilized
world--that our mother country, whose haughty minister some eighty odd
years ago declared that not a hob-nail should be made in the colonies,
which are now the United States, was brought some four years ago to
recognize our pre-eminence by sending a commission to examine our work