The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-06-01
BLOOD VS.. ENVIRONMENT.
President Harrison in his address on
Memorial day at Rochester, N. y, said:

on the highways OF Massachusetts, ana we, on
our part, learned that the spirit OF chivalry
which We found in the Southern army was COM
bined with the reserve ana steadfsstness OF
Cromwell's ironsideA
President Harrison was careful here not
to make the blunder made by George
William Curtis recently in public adj
dress: he did not describe the battle be-
tween the North and the South as con-
Net between men of Puritan and Cavalier
stock. Men Of mere literary facility
as distinguished from men of ac-
curate historical knowledge know
perfectly well that of Cavalier stock
the South, even in Virginia, had very
little, and in the rest Of the South none at
all. The mass of the Southern people
were descended from the same stock that
peopled New England. New Jersey and
Pennsylvania-from AngloSaxon, Irish.
Scotch and Scotch-Irish ancestors. The
Carolinas had Huguenot strain, but SO
did New York and New Jersey; the main
stock was about the same. The leading
men Of Virginia birth, like Washington,
jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Mon
roe, Harrison, Clay, Johnston. were all OF
yeoman stock; there was no aristocratic
English. blood among them; and it is
doubtful whether any of them were yeo-
man adherents of the Cavalier cause.
The Fairfaxes, the Carys, the Lees and
few other families comprise about all the
aristocratic blood in Virginia; the CAL
verts and few other families were about
all that Maryland could boast. The
stock Of the North and the South was
mainly from the same sources. There
were few men of English Puritan stock in
the South, but the same breed of men that
settled Maine and New Hampshire settled
Pennsylvania, large portion of Vir-
ginia, Georgia and the Carolinas, and their
overflow settled Alabama, Mississippi,
Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and
Texas. Whether it was Puritan or Pres
byterian in religion. the stock of the
North and the stock of the South was
plebeian, not aristocratic; 1t was peasant or
yeoman stock troubled by no warning
traditions of Cavalier and. Roundhead.
The prosecutions of the crown gave the
most powerful impulse to immigration,
and it is certain, therefore, that there
could not have been much Cavalier blood
in America, saving what came over when
the Stuarts were expelled, and the largest
portion Of these exiles returned to the
mother country.
The Puritan and the Cavalier solution
of the difference Of character between the
North and the South rests on no appre-
ciable historical foundation. The differ
ence in character between the Northern
and Southern people is due to diff
ference OF environment; not to
difference Of blood and hereditary
political and social traditions. Climate,
industrial institutions and environment
generally made the Southern man of the
same blood different in character from the
Northern man. Watterson, in the Louis
vile Journal, once showed that so-called
Southern characteristics were due to envi-
ronment. Albert Pike, George ID. Prentice
and Sergeant S. Prentiss were all New
England born and bred; they did not set
tie in the South until they reached man.
hood, and yet they quickly became as
thoroughly Southern in sentiment and
action, in speech and manner, in passion
ate devotion to their adopted section as
the most enthusiastic son of the South.
John Slidell was Northern born and
bred man, who did not go to Louisiana
until after he had reached his
majority; Benjamin and Yulee were
of Hebrew stock, born in the
West Indies. John SlidelI's nephew,
General Mckenzie, did not hesitate to
fight his uncle's cause, because his environ
ment made him Union man. Had John
Slidell never left New York for New Or
leans his environment would have kept
him true to the flag and the South would
have lost a very loyal and subtle conspir-
ator for secession. Sam Houston, who
went from Tennessee to Texas at a mature
age, resisted his environment, because he
had been devoted follower of General
Jackson all his life; he had served I'M
der Jackson in war; he had re-
ligiousiv adopted Jackson's hostility
to notification and secession, but it
is doubtful whether he could have resisted
his environment had he not been too old
for military service and secure from mo-
lestation in his attitude of peaceful pro-
test against secession. General Drayton,
who lived in South Carolina all his life,
went with the South; his brother. Adj
miral Drayton, whose life was spent in the
navy, stuck TO the flag. General Hurlbut,
born and bred in South Carolina, settled
in Illinois, and his new environment made
HIM Union soldier.
The Northern born and bred army off,
GERS who went with the South had gem
orally married Southern wives; the North.
ern born and bred men who had settled
at the South were generally passionately
devoted TO its cause; the in luence Of enyi-
ronment would probably generally ex-
plain why sons of the same father and
mother followed different flags during the
war; it certainly seems 10 Us 10 exulaiu
why the Virginian Thomas Was opposed
TO the Virginian Lee in battle. Lee be-
longed to historical Virginia family: was
a large Virginia land holder; while
Thomas had none OF those ties 10 bind
him TO his state. Environment made
the captive son OF Protestan, William
the Silent a bigoted Catholic. The
popular belief that the difference in the
military temper Of the Northern and
stock or blood has no foundation. During
the war of the Revolution Arnold and
Wayne were as daring and audacious in