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Show 28 THE GOLDEN HOUTI. tone1 1 e dby Us , Stranoo- enouob ·h to equal the ntunbers and means of the North. It has not yet been sufficiently considered that war and Slavery naturally consort ; war was the cradle of Slavery; the first slaves \Vere war-captives. In essence Slavery is the imposition of one will on another by physical force ; in that alone it differs from spontaneous or free labor. And war is but the acuta form of the same disease. Slavery has been a perpetual training for the can1p. Every man who leaves the North for the field of bat-tle is a laborer, and leaves so much derangement in the usual social integrity ; some wheel of the machine stops when he goes, and some deprivation ensues ; but in the South the war is the vent of idler , giving ain1 to lives hitherto ai1nlcss. This military life is a step in ad vance for the South, which bas already displayed energies of which it had not been suspected. The South will not get sick of war so soon as the North, it being quite atwin with its Slavery for the South to beco1ne fonnally a military country. Whilst the training of Freedom has led the North every day farther fron1 ·war, every day of Slavery has accu 'to1ned the 10uth to it. 'l:'hc North has to go back a hundred years to reach the plane of war; the land of Slav8ry never was beyond it. In war all yon have added to the \Vorld. in a century is not only out of place, but in your way ; only the coarsest and rude t things avail here, and those who are n1ost at home in the coarsest and rudest forces will, in a conflict of 1ncre brute force, be apt to win. Now MILITARY NECESSITY. 29 here are four millions of slaves working for the South. There being for 1niliLary purposes corn and pork wanted, and not arts and elcganccs, all the superiority of intelligent over unintelligent labor ceases. The man who can dig a row of corn or feed swine is equal to the finest mechanic. .And since every man who produces a soldier's ration points the soldier at us, just as the soldier points his gun at us, these four millions of negroes must be counted as our foes, whatever their feeling toward us. The South is, then, at the start, twelve millions to our eighteen. But of our eighteen the women do not work in the field, and the children go to school, whereas the black women and minors do work in the field,- which, for military force, would. make them nearly fifteen millions. Then we must estimate production in its relation to consumption : the black laborer, being fed at less than a third the cost of the corresponding Northern laborer, sustains at least ~wo 1nore soldiers in the field than the N ortherncr. Thus does the reign of barbarism reverse all the advantages of free over slave labor. In a conflict of mere brute force, Slavery has only to emphasize the old menace, fetter and bowie-knife to which it is accustomed. ' 'rho North has imagined that it could. bring the balance to its side by its superior \vealth; but it 1nust be remembered, that those who get without paying for it what others have to pay for, arc as rich as if they had the wherewithal to pay. Who would wish to be trou- |