he offspring
of the slave system, which boasted of the solidity of its own
organization and the impossibility of its overthrow. From their
standpoint, amid the darkness of a social organization, in which one
half the population is not more than semi-civilized, the slaveholders
could not easily obtain any other view. Long accustomed to wield
irresponsible power as masters, enjoying wealth and independence from
the unrewarded labor of the slave, but liberal and humane, condescending
and indulgent, so long as the untutored black was quiet and obedient,
the planter very naturally imagined his system to be the perfection of
social order. In the atmosphere of luxurious ease which surrounded him,
were the elements of a mental mirage which distorted everything in his
deceptive vision. He weighed the two systems, and found his own
immeasurably more powerful than its antagonist. Fatal mistake! fatal but
inevitable, in his condition, in the midst of the blinding refractions
of the medium which enveloped him.

Prosperity had made him giddy. Cotton was not merely King--it was God.
Moral considerations were nothing. The sentiment of right, he argued,
would have no influence over starving operatives; and England and
France, as well as the Eastern States of the Union, would stand aghast
and yield to the masterstroke which should deprive them of the material
of their labor. Millions were dependent on it in all the great centres
of civilization, and the ramifications of its power extended into all
ranks of society and all departments of industry and commerce. It was
only necessary to wave this imperial sceptre over the nations, and all
of them would fall prostrate and acknowledge the supremacy of the power
which wielded it. Nothing could be more plausible than this delusion.
Satan himself, when about to wage war in heaven, could not have invented
one better calculated to marshal his hosts and give promise of success
in rebellion against the authority of the Most High. But alas! the
supreme error of this anticipation lay in omitting from the calculation
all power of principle. The right still has authority over the minds of
men and in the counsels of nations. Factories may cease their din; men
and women may be thrown out of employment; the marts of commerce may be
silent and deserted; but truth and justice still command some respect
among men, and God yet remains the object of their adoration.

Drunk with power and dazzled with prosperit