The dangers and duties of the present crisis! : a discourse delivered in the Union Church, St. Louis, January 4, 1861 / Page: 6 of 18
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6
But the Anglo-Saxcon element has so predominated, as to give unity to
the whole. We have one language, one history, and one religion.
No wonder, then, that our interests are one. In the audience now
before me, I see an illustration of this variety in oneness - this civil
and social e pluribus unurn. Here, we see those who first saw the
light among the granite hills of New England; those who were cra-
dled amid the eternal verdure and fruitfulness of the sunny South, and
those who have been nursed into maturity on the generous bosom of
our broad western prairies, and they are associated in the most inti-
mate domestic, social and business relations. But it is not merely here
but everywhere, that this blending of interests exists. The real intri-
cacy and delicacy of our relations is seen in .the present panic. No
pestilence is sweeping over our land - no foreign war is girding our
shores and cutting off our communication with the world; commerce
is doing her full work, and for ten days in succession, in the midst of
our financial distress, poured coin into a single one of our ports at the
rate of a million of dollars a day; and fruitful seasons and teeing
soils give us the means of meeting an enormous demand on our pro-
ductiveness, and open an indefinite field in the future for a beneficent
interchange of products between the marts of the new and old world -
in the midst of all these mighty causes of prosperity - the bare dan-
ger of dissolution, the threatened secession of a single state, less in
population than some of our cities, spreads dismay and ruin through
our land. The pulse of industry stands still, values disappear, and in
a few days we suffer a depreciation of $800,000,000. Nothing can
more clearly show that we are one body, having many members, in
which if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.
But it is also true, that in addition to the unity of which I have
spoken, we are geographically one. Diversity of soil, climate and
production, tend to oneness of interest. One portion of our land sup-
plies the deficiency of another. Thus the parts are complementary,
and are necessary to the fullest development of each other. The
bonds that bind us together, are the strongest that are seen in any
large territory. Compare our empire, in this respect, with that of any
other great power, such as Russia or Great Britain. Not even our
distant Pacific coast is an exception to this remark. In our body poli-
tic, the bonds are both natural and artificial. The rivers are the chan-
nels of artificial blood that visit and vitalize the whole. The railroads
are the bones that strengthen every part, and the telegraphic wires
are the nerves along which flash the currents of thought, feeling and
impulse. And these channels of intercommunion, which are at once
confessions of mutual dependence and bonds of union, are growing
more extended in their ramifications, and more perfect in their efli-
ciency, every year we live. Every foot of' railroad, canal, or tele-Awr
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Anderson, S. J. P., (Samuel James Pierce), 1841-1873. The dangers and duties of the present crisis! : a discourse delivered in the Union Church, St. Louis, January 4, 1861 /, pamphlet, Date Unknown; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth497972/m1/6/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Schreiner University.