John F. Hume, The abolitionists together with personal memories of the struggle for human rights

There were reasons for such a state of things — some very solid, because financial.

The North and the South were extensively interlaced by mutual interests. With slave labor the Southern planters made cotton, and with the proceeds of their cotton they bought Northern machinery and merchandise. They sent their boys and girls to Northern schools. They came North themselves when their pockets were full, and freely spent their money at Northern hotels, Northern theatres, Northern race-tracks, and other Northern places of entertainment.

Then there were other ties than those of business. The great political parties had each a Southern wing. Religious denominations had their Southern members. Every kind of trade and calling had its Southern outlet.

But social connections were the strongest of all, and probably had most to do in making Northern sentiment. Southern gentlemen were popular in the North. They spent money lavishly. Their manners were grandiose. They talked boastfully of the number of their “niggers,” and told how they were accustomed to “wallop” them.

Then there were marriage ties between the sections. Many domestic alliances strengthened the bond between slavery and the aristocracy of the North.

In the circles in which these things were going on, it was the fashion to denounce the Abolitionists. Women were the most bitter. The slightest suspicion of sympathy with the “fanatics” was fatal to social ambition. Mrs. Henry Chapman, the wife of