I obviously don’t subscribe to this kind of over-familiar nonsense, but here anyway is Dickens in Household words (via Google Print) in 1856:
There have not been wanting theorists who have recognised in the apparently constant opposition of the north and south a kind of natural law, by which both are destined to be regulated, and [...]

There’s a terrible piece by James Sturcke in the Guardian today on the statute of autonomy. It repeats various stale myths about Barça having been a focus of anti-Francoism (links: debunking of football results, piece on recently demonstrated connections between the Barça board and the Spanish ultra-right) and gets its statute facts badly wrong. Some [...]