until the creditors might be considered obnoxious to the Mosaic law, which looked with disfavor upon scaleless fish, it is naturally aggravating to them to remember that, at the close of King Philip’s war, Plymouth Colony was owing a debt more than equal to the personal property of the colony, and that the debt was paid to the last cent [applause]; to remember the time, not very far gone by, when the Bay State paid the interest on her bonds in gold, though it cost her two hundred and seventy-six cents on every dollar to do it, and when it was proposed to commend the bonds of the United States to the bankers of the world by placing upon them the indorsement of Massachusetts [applause]; to remember that never has New England learned to articulate the letters that spell the word “Repudiation.” [Great applause.]

To those members of the human family who are disposed to entertain too high an estimate of themselves there is something aggravating in the extreme humility and sensitive self-depreciation of the real New Englander.

And the virtues of New England are all the more offensive because they are exhibited in such a way as to take from her enemies the comfort that grows out of a grievance.  Said a Chicago wife, “It is real mean for Charlie to be so good to me; I want to get a divorce and go on the stage; but he is so kind I cannot help loving him, and that is what makes me hate him so.”  When there comes the news that some far-off region is desolated by fire, or flood, or tempest, or pestilence, the first thing is a meeting in the metropolis of New England, and the dispatching of food and funds and physicians and nurses; and the relieved sufferers are compelled to murmur, “Oh, dear, it is too bad!  We want to hate them, and they won’t let us.” [Applause.]

One can manage to put up with goodness, however, if it is not too obtrusive.  The honored daughter of Connecticut, the author of “Uncle Tom” and “Dred,” now in the peaceful evening of her days,[11] has said, “What is called goodness is often only want of force.”  A good man, according to the popular idea, is a man who doesn’t get in anybody’s way.  But the restless New Englanders not only have virtues, but they have convictions which are perpetually asserting themselves in the most embarrassing manner. [Applause.] I pass over the time, two centuries ago, when Cromwell and Hampden, those New Englanders who have never seen New England, made themselves exceedingly offensive to Charles I, and gave him at last a practical lesson touching the continuity of the spinal column.

Later, when our fellow-citizens desired to “wallop their own niggers,” and to carry the patriarchal institution wherever the American flag went, they were naturally irritated at hearing that there was a handful of meddling fanatics down in Essex County who, in their misguided and malevolent ingenuity, had invented what they called liberty and human rights. [Applause.] Presently, when it was proposed (under