Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/131

Rh At the North, every body is busy in some employment, and politics, with very few exceptions, form but a brief episode in the lives of the citizens. But the Southern politicians are men of leisure. They have nothing to do but to ride round their plantations, hunt, attend the races, study politics for the next legislative or congressional campaign, and decide how to use the prodigious mechanical power, of slave representation, which a political Archimedes may effectually wield for the destruction of commerce, or anything else, involving the prosperity of the free States.

It has been already said, that most of the wealth in New England was made by commerce; consequently the South became unfriendly to commerce. There was a class in New England, jealous, and not without reason, of their own commercial aristocracy. It was the policy of the South to foment these passions, and increase these prejudices. Thus was the old Democratic party formed; and while that party honestly supposed they were merely resisting the encroachments of a nobility at home, they were actually playing a game for one of the most aristocratic classes in the world—viz. the Southern planters. A famous slaveowner and politician, openly boasted, that the South could always put down the aristocracy of the North, by means of her own democracy. In this point of view, democracy becomes a machine used by one aristocratic class against another, that has less power, and is therefore less dangerous.

There are features in the organization of society, resulting from slavery, which are conducive to anything but the union of these States. A large class are without employment, are accustomed to command, and have a strong contempt for habits of industry. This class, like the nobility of feudal times, are restless, impetuous, eager for excitement, and prompt to settle all questions with the sword. Like the fierce old barons, at the head of their vassals, they are ever ready to resist and nullify the central power of the State, whenever it interferes with their individual interests, or even approaches the strong holds of their prejudices. All history shows, that men possessing hereditary, despotic power, cannot easily be brought