laboring class, was one whose influence could not help being universal
and aggressive. Every form of energy and prosperity which tended to
advance a citizen into the class of representative rulers tended also to
make him a slave owner, and to shackle his official policy and purposes
with considerations inseparable from his heavy personal interests. Men
might divide on other questions at the South; but on this question of
slavery the action of the individual had to follow the decisions of a
majority which, by the influence of ambitious aspirants for the lead,
was continually becoming more aggressive. In constitutional countries,
defections to the minority are a steady check upon an aggressive
majority; but the southern majority was a steam engine without a safety
valve.

In this sense Seward and Lincoln, in 1858, were correct; the labor
system of the South was not only a menace to the whole country, but one
which could neither decrease nor stand still. It was intolerable by
the laws of its being; and it could be got rid of only by allowing
a peaceable secession, or by abolishing it through war. The material
prosperity which has followed the adoption of the latter alternative,
apart from the moral aspects of the case, is enough to show that the
South has gained more than all that slavery lost.


[Illustration: Rufus King]




RUFUS KING,