The National tribune., 1909-08-05
"sECTIoNALIsM AND IT'S FRUITS y

and increase the bitterness of the
Southerners against the people of the
loyal portion of the Union is a pamph.
let written by Benz. L. Grady, Professor
of Mathematics and the Natural Sci
ences in Austin College, Huntsville,
Tex. While bewailing sectionality and
its pernicious effects upon the country,
Prof. Grady has written a pamphlet
into which he has infused all the gall
that words can convey, and striven his
utmost to breed hatred against New
England. According to his pamphlet,
New England was the whole loyal sec
ton of the country, and responsible for
the war and all that it brought upon
the South. His claim as a historian
will appear to the most casual reader
as very shallow and perverse. He starts
out with the proposition that the New
Englanders were an especially mis-
chievous lot, who believed themselves
Gods chosen people, and commanded
to punish and overthrow all others OF
course, he makes out that the Southern
were free from the vices and faults of
the Yankees. To support this view he
industriously rakes up, in the early
archives of the country, all the little
instances and trivial occurrences which
will reflect reproach upon the New
Englanders. He cites some of the in
stances of the bad conduct of the milf
tia and of the grasping avarice CT the
people, laying particular stress upon
their treatment Of the Indians. witches
and Quakers. The absurd falsity of this
method of procedure is that 1t is con-
founding the times with the people. OF
course, the same, and we might say
worse, truth, If we We're disposed to,
could be said about the people of the
other colonies. The same might be said
of the early history of Kansas, Missouri,
Arkansas and other new. countries.
The man that goes muck raking
around into any history. ancient or
modern, can always find any quantity
of muck. Prof. Grady may know some
thing of mathematics, but he exposes
very gross ignorance of ordinary
school chemistry when he says: Cheap
whisky filtered thru charcoal and mixed
with rum in about the proportion of
four gallons of whisky to one of rum
and then run thru rum distilIery was
exported" Any school boy would have
told him that the cheapest and easiest
way to make rum was by the distilla-
ton of the molasses brought by sailing
vessels from the West Indies to New
England. They did not have to mix any
whisky with it. 1t was more easily and
cheapiy made the other way. We only
mention this to show his ignorance of
elemental facts.
When it comes to talking about the.
slave trade it is "the pot calling the
kettle black" for anyone in the South
to reproach New England, as all of the
colonists Were tarred with the same
stick in that particular. Slave trading
was very profitable business, and all
that can be said in defense of New Eng
land is that their consciences were
sooner awakened about trafficking in
human flesh, and public opinion was so
strongly aroused against it that New
England even before the Revolution.
ceased its traffic. while it continued to
be so respectable in the South that
slave traders fiourished and held up
their heads with honest men, even as
late as the beginning of the war of the
rebellion.
South Carolina was only prevented
from declaring in favor of the reopen
ing of the slave trade when the at
tempt was made to establish the South
ern Confederacy by the necessity of
bringing Virginia into the Confederacy.
was then living mainly on the
proceeds of the sales of her slaves to
the rest of the South, and this source
of income would have been cut off if
South Carolina, Louisiana and other
States had been allowed to export cheap
negros directly from Africa and Cuba
The crowning blunder that Prof.
Grady makes is, however, in assuming
that New England was the whole thing
In the war against the South. 1t is
true that she was quite important in
that war. as was every loyal State and
County, but numerically and politically
she was only small part of the great
Union host Millions of people who
had not so much as seen New England
earnestly supported the Union and sent
their sons to fight for its salvation.
While the New England States did their
fuil duty in the war, the rebellion was
by the enormous weight of such
states as New York, Pennsylvania.
OHIO. Indiana and Illinois. Altogether
the New England States furnished 375.-
l5l eniistments, or about one-eighth of
the whole number. New York, New
Jersey and Pennsylvania furnished
914.164, or pretty near three times as
many as New England, while the great |
interior furnished 1,09S,0Ss and the
Border States 301,062 All of these
troops were. it is true. necessary for
the triumph of the Union, but Prof. |
Grady has selected small unit to law
ish all of his diatribes upon. Our COL |
leges and universities have been Justly
accused of late years of not furnishing
teachers with sufficient ability to con-
slider great political and economical |