It must also be remembered that on commercial questions the North and the West are divided.  The Morrill tariff is as odious to the West as it is to the South.  The South and West are both agricultural productive regions, desirous of sending cotton and corn to foreign countries, and of receiving back foreign manufactures on the best terms.  But the North is a manufacturing country—­a poor manufacturing country as regards excellence of manufacture—­and therefore the more anxious to foster its own growth by protective laws.  The Morrill tariff is very injurious to the West, and is odious there.  I might add that its folly has already been so far recognized even in the North as to make it very generally odious there also.

So much I have said endeavoring to make it understood how far the North and West were united in feeling against the South in the autumn of 1861, and how far there existed between them a diversity of interests.

CHAPTER IX.

FROM NIAGARA TO THE MISSISSIPPI.

From Niagara we went by the Canada Great Western Railway to Detroit, the big city of Michigan.  It is an American institution that the States should have a commercial capital—­or what I call their big city—­as well as a political capital, which may, as a rule, be called the State’s central city.  The object in choosing the political capital is average nearness of approach from the various confines of the State but commerce submits to no such Procrustean laws in selecting her capitals and consequently she has placed Detroit on the borders of Michigan, on the shore of the neck of water which joins Lake Huron to Lake Erie, through which all the trade must flow which comes down from Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Huron on its way to the Eastern States and to Europe.  We had thought of going from Buffalo across Lake Erie to Detroit; but we found that the better class of steamers had been taken off the waters for the winter.  And we also found that navigation among these lakes is a mistake whenever the necessary journey can be taken by railway.  Their waters are by no means smooth, and then there is nothing to be seen.  I do not know whether others may have a feeling, almost instinctive, that lake navigation must be pleasant—­that lakes must of necessity be beautiful.  I have such a feeling, but not now so strongly as formerly.  Such an idea should be kept for use in Europe, and never brought over to America with other traveling gear.  The lakes in America are cold, cumbrous, uncouth, and uninteresting—­intended by nature for the conveyance of cereal produce, but not for the comfort of traveling men and women.  So we gave up our plan of traversing the lake, and, passing back into Canada by the suspension bridge at Niagara, we reached the Detroit River at Windsor by the Great Western line, and passed thence by the ferry into the City of Detroit.