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Show 8 DF.SPOTISI\l tage, not being compelled to encounter a multitude of hostile influences, by which such an undertaking, any where else, would be most vigorously opposed. This is not a true representation of the case. If in certain parts of the American Union, the .experiment of Democracy be steadily and quietly pursued, and with an influence and a feeling in its favor which have at length become predominant, in certain other parts of the country it is quite overshadowed, and is reduced to creep pale and sickly on the ground, by another experiment, less talked about, less celebrated but not the les~ real or important, to wit, the exper'iment of Despot.snt. The Northern States of the Union are unquestionable Democracies, and every day they are verging nearer and nearer towards the simple idea and theoretic perfection of that form of government. The Souther~ States of the Union, though certain democratiC prmctples are to be found in their constitutions and their I a ws, are in no modern sense of the word entitled to the appellation of Democracies: 'l'hey are AnstocraciCs; and aristocracies of the sternest and most odious kind. Property, and all the rights, ad~ a~tages and enJoyments which the laws bestow, are hmttcd to certain families and their descendants. Certam other families and their oH"spring, to the latest 15eneratwn, are not only deprived of all political privllcgcs and socml advantages, but they are the hcredllary subjects, servants, bondsmen of the privileged class. Every man of the privileged order who is possessed of an¥ property at all, is apt to own at least one slave; lf he IS nch, he may own a thousand; but whether one or a thousand of those he docs own the laws create ~1im with but~ single slight, and in' fact merely nonunal exception, the absolute master, lord and despot. In their relation towards each other the members of the privileged class are nominally equal; and m.'hat aspect, it may happen that the lord of a plantatiOn and five hundred slaves, shall be a great sttckler for hberty and equality. But the liberty and IN Al\lEltiCA. 9 equality for which he contends, is wholly confined to the privileged order; and the total subjection and eternal servitude of the unprivileged class is considered a matter of course, a first principle, a fixed and established ordinance, as inevitable and as incapable of alteration, as the laws of nature. It is e.vidcnt then, how complicated is the American experiment. If the democratical part of it, has hitherto been pursued in silence and quiet, and with such appa.rent success that the admirers of Democracy have been ready to cry out that the problem is already solved ;-that quiet and silence have been n1erely accidental; .that success has been only a progress which was comparatively speaking, but slightly opposed; and it is but now that Democracy and Despotism face to face, like Gabriel and the Arch-enemy, make ready for a desperate and dreadful struggle. The preparation, the courage, the arms, the loftiness of soul were not on the part of the "angelic squadron" alone:- -On t' other side, Satan a.larm'd Collecting all his might, dilated stood Like Tencriffe, or Atlas, uhremoved. His stature reached the sky, and on his crest Sat horror plum' d; nor wanted in his grasp What secm.'d both spear and shield.- The struggle that impends is of a nature to shake the country to the centre, and to end, if we believe the prophecies of our southern friends, in civil commotions, infuriated hostilities, and savage war. So it may be. The event is in their power. Let them be wise in time. rrhe balance of justice is stretched across the sky,-and is it not their scale that kicks the beam 1 Let them look up and read their lot in that celestial sign, and know themselves, how light, how weak, if they resist. Even the arch-fiend cared not to struggle against inevitable fate, and fled a strife in which he could but suffer. That heterogeneous mixture of aristocracies and |