Here Comes The Bride

Rural vs. Urban Life and Industrialization

Table #1

Jack Beauregard (JB): You see my plantation is a place of production and pride.

Francis Cabot Lowell (FCL): Not as much production as my mill.

JB: Oh please. My household could uphold itself for years to come with only the sweat of a mans brow and the strength of his back.

FCL: Why sweat when you can have a machine do the work for you? Girls can come to the city and there

is opportunity for them all.

JB: Ya don't say soÐ'...

FCL: I do say so. Girls come to my factory and make a nice little profit. They gain financial freedom that they have yearned for.

JB: But at what costs? Famine, discrimination, theft and crimeÐ'...

FCL: Now wait a minuteÐ'...

JB: A bigger and bigger gap between the rich and poor, a lack of security, dirty water, no sanitationÐ'...

FCL: Well what could be so amazing about a stupid farm anyways?

JB: Like I said before, we can provide for ourselves on the farm and every member of the family gives an equal share of work. Our goods are made primarily to be used by only us so we only have to work hard enough to grow enough for ourselves.

FCL: But what about the money? (In a in a day-dreamish visionary madness) The hundreds of dollars, mounds and mounds of moneyÐ'... I mean, aren't the advantages of combining raw materials, workers, machines, and power--all under one roofÐ'--obvious? Well to me it is. But what about the stuff you can't just grow for yourself? Where do you think they make all that stuff?

JB: Well in that respect I guess you are right. So score one for the mill.

FCL: Hah, so my mill IS better than your farm!

JB: Now I did not say that! We do need factories but there is no way that they can out produce or out resource a farm. We provide you with the raw materials to make your goods and then you go and try to sell the stuff back to us for a heck of a lot more money than they are worth.

Mrs. Colleen O'Malley (MCO): If I may interrupt. Mr. Beauregard yes you are right that your farm gives factories a lot of stuff to make them work but think about the great things a factory can do to change people lives. I know my family greatly benefited from factories. When my husband and I first came over from Ireland we went looking for work. He found a job in the factory and quickly we were able to start a comfortable life style. When we were escaping from the famine back home we thought all was lost but with the help of the factory my family never starved.

JB: Well ma'am I am sorry to be rude and undermine your successes but you were lucky to have an opportunity to get into a good industry system. Most factories are not as nice as the one your husband may have worked at.

JB: OoookayyyyÐ'...

States' Rights

Table #3

John C. Calhoun (JCC): Thank the lord for states rights!

Henry Clay (HC): Tell it brother!

Rebecca Beauregard (RB): (in a crazy ranting) Amen! Hallelujah!

Susan B. Anthony (SA): (in a whispering tone to RB) No honey. JustÐ'....just stopÐ'....

JCC: In my personal opinion every state has their own right to watch over the shoulder of the feds. I mean don't you guys agree?

Table #3: Yeah!

JCC: Like I thought. Who honestly wants all of those high tariffs? If they were actually benefiting us then I wouldn't have such a problem, but all of the profit is going to those greedy northerners.

RB: I went to buy a French sickle the other day and I had brought the $3.47 that it always costs, and when I got there I didn't have enough. Those stupid people raised the price of all the imported items that I needed.

JCC: Well if I have any say in it, we will be rid of these tariffs soon enough. I got rid of the Tariff of 1828, and I will get rid of any new ones that come our way.

Expansionism

Table #1

Jack Beauregard (JB): This is some good tea.

Mrs. John C. Calhoun (MJCC): I do agree Jack. I hear it is from the tea trees in the west.

JB: Aaah. It is a good thing that we are doing over there.

MJCC: What is that?

JB: Well for starters we are tamin' them crazy Indians and claiming what land is rightfully ours.

MJCC: Oh.

JB: Plus we be teachin' them our good and righteous ideals.

MJCC: And what ideals would those be?

JB: FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY! We are serving the duty that God our Lord in Heaven bestowed upon us. As them scholars would say Manifest Destiny.

Mrs. William Lloyd Garrison (MWLG): So says the man of 500 slaves. People like you have taken those Indians and cramped them on the reservations. How is that a way to live?

JB: It's for their own good. They can't live with us and we can't live with them so now we all have our own space. Besides there are a lot less of them than there are of us.

MWLG: But it isn't even our land to put rightfully put them there.

JB: