erver. Have the slave-owners thus gone on from victory to victory
and from strength to strength by reason of their multitude, of their
wealth, of their public services, of their intelligence, of their
wisdom, of their genius, or of their virtue? Success in gigantic
crime sometimes implies a strength and energy which compel a kind of
respect even from those that hate it most. The right supremacy of the
power that thus sways our destiny clearly does not reside in the
overwhelming numbers of those that bear rule. The entire sum of all
who have any direct connection with Slavery, as owners or hirers, is
less than THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND,--not half as many as the
inhabitants of the single city of New York! And yet even this number
exaggerates the numerical force of the dominant element in our
affairs. To approximate to the true result, it would be fair to strike
from the gross sum those owning or employing less than ten slaves, in
order to arrive at the number of slave-owners who really compose the
ruling influence of the nation. This would leave but a small fraction
over NINETY THOUSAND, men, women, and children, owning slaves enough
to unite them in a common interest. And from this should be deducted
the women and minors, actually owning slaves in their own right, but
who have no voice in public affairs. These taken away, and the
absentees flying to Europe or the North from the moral contaminations
and material discomforts inseparable from Slavery, and not much more
than FIFTY THOUSAND voting men will remain to represent this mighty
and all-controlling power!--a fact as astounding as it is
incontrovertible.

Oligarchies are nothing new in the history of the world. The
government of the many by the few is the rule, and not the exception,
in the politics of the times that have been and of those that now
are. But the concentration of the power that determines the policy,
makes the laws, and appoints the ministers of a mighty nation, in the
hands of less than the five-hundredth part of its members, is an
improvement on the essence of the elder aristocracies; while the
usurpation of the title of the Model Republic and of the Pattern
Democracy, under which we offer ourselves to the admiration and
imitation of less happy nations, is certainly a refinement on their
nomenclature.

This prerogative of power, too, is elsewhere conceded by the multitude
to their rulers generally for some especial fitness, real or
imaginary