rginian, a
Louisianian: he dilated in the proud consciousness of his country's
transcendent growth and wondrous greatness, and confidently anticipated
the day when its flag should float unchallenged from Hudson's Bay to the
Isthmus of Darien, if not to Cape Horn.

It was this strong instinct of Nationality which rendered the masses so
long tolerant, if not complaisant, toward Slavery and the Slave Power.
Merchants and bankers were bound to their footstool by other and
ignobler ties; but the yeomanry of the land regarded slavery with a
lenient if not absolutely favoring eye, because it existed in fifteen of
our States, and was cherished as of vital moment by nearly all of them,
so that any popular aversion to it evinced by the North, would tend to
weaken the bonds of our Union. It might _seem_ hard to Pomp, or Sambo,
or Cuffee, to toil all day in the rice-swamp, the cotton-field, to the
music of the driver's lash, with no hope of remuneration or release, nor
even of working out thereby a happier destiny for his children; but
after all, what was the happiness or misery of three or four millions of
stupid, brutish negroes, that it should be allowed to weigh down the
greatness and glory of the Model Republic? Must there not always be a
foundation to every grand and towering structure? Must not some grovel
that others may soar? Is not _all_ drudgery repulsive? Yet must it not
be performed? Are not negroes habitually enslaved by each other in
Africa? Does not their enslavement here secure an aggregate of labor and
production that would else be unattainable? Are we not enabled by it to
supply the world with Cotton and Tobacco and ourselves with Rice and
Sugar? In short, is not to toil on white men's plantations the negro's
true destiny, and Slavery the condition wherein he contributes most
sensibly, considerably, surely, to the general sustenance and comfort of
mankind? If it is, away with all your rigmarole declarations of 'the
inalienable Rights of Man'--the right of every one to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness! Let us have a reformed and rationalized
political Bible, which shall affirm the equality of all _white_
men--_their_ inalienable right to liberty, etc., etc. Thus will our
consistency be maintained, our institutions and usages stand justified,
while we still luxuriate on our home-grown sugar and rice, and deluge
the civilized world with our cheap cotton and tobacco!--And thus our
country--which had claime