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Show 102 DESPOTIS!'!I of social improvement. What then has chan!jed the condition of Europe to the state of comparattve ad· vanccment in which we now .see it? A fe\V serfs flying from the tyranny of thClr lords, founded here and there, a little settlement. They bmlt walls to protect themselves from feudal aggressiOn. In many cases they resort~d to some anc~ent ctty, a.remna~lt.~f former times, dwmdled to a rm~, but whJCh theu m~ dustry helped to repair, and thmr eonra~c to defend. '!'hey applied themselves to the mechamc arts and to trade. Gradually they amassed wealth. In these cities slavery was not tolerated, and the serfs of the neighborhood found . first protection, and presently citizenship. These Clttes thus founded and thus bmlt up are the origin of that great class of merc!mnts, mdnn[acturcrs, and industrious men, to whom Europe is indebted for its present advancement, and on whom its future hopes depend. . The same tendency of servttude to produce great inequalities of condition among the free JS as ':tstblc in the history of America as of Europe. The msurrection of the slaves of St. Dommgo had for tts nnm&diate occasion a violent quarrel between the wlute and the mulatto slave-holders of the island. While these two factions of the free were engaged in a bloody contest on the question of political eq.uality, ~he slaves seized the opportunity to reclaim thetrltberttes. Slavery produces the same effects '!' the southern states of the American union, whtch It ever has pro· dnced in all the world beside. Several cases have hitherto operated to retard, or to disguise these effects, bnt they are becoming every day more and more visible. 1 · 1 to The poor whites of the old slave states have utter d found a resource in emigration. All of them wl~o l~t any spirit of enterprise and industry have qwt~~id~ home where labor was disgraceful, and m the regions beyond the mountains have attainrd a c~~; fortahle livelihood, and have amassed wealth by ~1~" ot which however innocent or laudable, they cou l n IN AMERICA. 103 employ. in the places where they were born, without a cer.tam degree of. self-abas~ment. But by a fatal oversight, a most disastrous Ignorance, they omitted to excl_ude that great source of evil, the bitter effects of which they ha~ experience~ in th~ir <?Wn persons; ~11d that same tram of causes 1s .now m full operation m Kentucky and Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas which drove the original settlers of those states fro~ Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. As to the south w~stcrn states, they offer no resources to the poor whites. ':£1he cultivation of cotton has attracted thither, and still continues to attract a host of slav~-mastcrs, and whole gangs of slaves. No man can emigrate to those states who expects to live by the labor of his hands, unless he is prepared to brave that very ignominy,. and to plunge anew into that very s~ctal conditiOn which makes him uneasy, and cuts htm off from all chance of advancement at home. Political parties in the slave-holding states within D: few years past, have begun to assume an asPect entirely new, and one which gives fearful omen that these slave-holding republics are about to follow in the career of those ancient states, whose policy was founded, like theirs, upon a system of slavery. There ts already, throughout most or all of the slave-holding ~tales, an anst?crahc party, and a party which calls ltself democratte. The aristocratic party is composed of the rteh planters, and of those whom their wealth enables them to influence and control. 'l'he democratic party, S? called, is composed in a great measure ofthe poor wlute folks, with a sprinkling of ambitious anstocrats for leaders. 'rhis miscalled democratic party,-for it is in fact only a faction of the white ~nstocracy,-by. the natural operation of the slave-oldmg Sjfstem, ts rapidly increasing in numbers, and '~tth the mcreas~ of_ its numhcrs, the social degradation and the destitutiOn of its members will also increase. Measures of enlightened policy are hardly to be expected from such a party, even if it could obtain power and keep tt, wluch indeed is hardly to be ex- |