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Show 56 Take the two million population of Virginia and South Carolina: there is no people in Western Europe so little advanced as they; and, in all Christendom, there are only two nations or collections of men who stand on the same level,- the Russian empire and Spanish America. Behold the reason for the phenomenon which struck many with surprise,- that South Carolina and Virginia, in their politics, have recently sympathized with Russia and Brazil. Birds of a feather flock together, like consorting with like. Here, then, are these two nations, alike in their ethnological origin, joint in their history, now utterly diverse and antagonistic in disposition and aim. The North has organized Freedom, and seeks to extend it ; the South, Bondage, and aims to spread that. The North is progressively Christian and democratic; while the South is progressively anti-Christian and undemocratic. First, only the Southern Measures were anti-Christian and undemocratic; now, also its Principles. It lays down anti-Christianity and anti-Democracy as the only theory of religion and politics. In New England, Man is put before Property, the human substance above the material accident· in Vir- ' ginia and South Carolina, Property is put before Man, the material accident before the human substance itself; and, of all property, that which is most valued and most carefully preserved, thought most "aristocratic" and sacred, is property in the bodies of men. That is the odds between the North and the South. . Now, the Progressive Power of America is lodged chiefly Ill the North, where it is diffused almost universally amongst the people, but most conspicuously comes to light in the men of genius. Accordingly, every man of Poetic or Scientific Genius in the North is an antislavery rnan; every preacher with any spark of Christian Genius in hin1 is a progressive man, and hostile to slavery. 57 The Regressive Power is lodged chiefly at the South, where it is considerably diffused among the people. That wide diffusion comes partly from the ethnologic sluggishness of the African element mixed in with the population, but still more from the degradation incident to a people who have long sat under tyrannical masters. It is this which has debased the Caucasian of Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina. But as the progressive force of the North comes clearest to light in the n1en of genius, so the regressive force at the South is most shown in the men of eminent ability, ecclesiastical and political, of whom not a single man is publicly progressive in Christianity or Democracy. Compare the spirit of the great newspapers of the South, the " Richmond Examiner," the " Charleston Mercury," with those of the North, the "New-York Tribune," the " Evening Post;" com pare the Southern politicians, the Masons and To om bses, with the Sewards and Chases of the North. See the odds between the mass of the people at the North and the South ; between the eminent . genius, all of which at the North is progressive, but all of which at the South turns its back on human progress, and would leave humanity behind. There is the difference. This regressive force accepts Slavery as the Dagon of its idolatry, its "peculiar institution;" and slavery is to the South what the Book of Mormon or the car of Juggernaut is to its worshippers. This institution is so iniquitous and base, that, in Christian Europe, all the Teutonic nations have swept it away; and all the Celtic, all the Romanic nations, even the inhabitants of Spain, have trodden bondage under their feet. Yes, the Ugrians have driven out such slavery from Hungary, from Livonia, from Lapland itself; and, of all parts of Europe, Russia and Turkey alone still keep the unclean thing; but even there it is progressively diminishing. As a Measure, it is felt to be excep-s |