Speech #450097344

The Senator from Maine asked a question which grated upon my ear. He asked a question which I think had better been pretermitted for this moment. tosay the least. He asked the question why there was no emigration to the South. Ah. Mr. President! a great deal hangs upon that question. and more hangs upon the mistaken view that the Senator from Maine has of it perhaps than he nowsupposes. There is emigration to the South. a large emigration to the South from the Northwest. if not from the Northeast. Texas is filling up with population now to such an extent that whereas she has but six members on the floor of the House of Representatives today. she claims eighteen tnder the next apportionment. and the power will be transferred froni his little neck of land. running up to the Saint Lawrence down into the great dominion of Teas. for he will lose strength while Texas gains strength under the operation of the laws of the United States and its Constitution. There is vast emigration to the South. and there would be vastly more if the gentlemen who have the charge of politics in the Northern States Would speak of us and act toward us as if we were really citizens of the United States entitled to the respect that that honored name brings to men and to communities. But. sir. emigration has gone to Alabama. There is one county which was created by the Legislature at the last biennial session called the county of Cullman. named after a distinguishqd German who visited the plains which lie on the top of the Sand Mountain. as we call it. and seeing there a land that the native people of the country had not inhabited he becanm possessed with the idea that it had a good foundation of soil. and was capable of large improvement. Thereupon be got a very large concession of land amounting to more than one hundred thousand acres. and he organized in 1872 a little colony upon it. starting out with about fifty families. and now they have risen to that extent that they are entitled to representation in the Legislature of Alabama.