That interest, already vindicated for
herself, has become world-wide in its meaning; so that, in virtue
of what she has accomplished in the cause of freedom, she takes an
authoritative position of leadership in modern civilization. And what
is it that hinders the fulfilment of her exalted mission? She, too, has
been flanked in her march by a traitor within her own borders;
against her, and doing violence to her high office, are opposed the
backward-tending elements of barbarism, which, if not immediately
neutralized, if not summarily crushed, will drag her to the lowest
stages of weakness and exhaustion.
A very minute parallel might be, drawn between the opposing
civilizations that are to-day in this country contending for the mastery
and those which were engaged in a similar conflict in the days of
Pericles. New England would be found to be the Attica of America; while,
on the other hand, the Southrons would most exactly correspond to the
ancient Lacedaemonians. As the Cavaliers who first settled Virginia
helped on the Puritan exodus, so did the Dorians that settled Sparta,
through the tumult of their overwhelming invasion, drive the Ionians
from their old homes to the barren wastes of Attica,--barren as compared
with the fertile valleys of the Eurotas, just as New England would be
considered sterile when contrasted with Virginia or the Valley of the
Mississippi.
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