no atonement by elevating the other class by higher virtues, and
more liberal attainments--if, besides degraded slaves, there should be
ignorant, ignoble, and degraded freemen. There is a broad and well
marked line, beyond which no slavish vice should be regarded with the
least toleration or allowance. One class is cut off from all interest in
the State--that abstraction so potent to the feelings of a generous
nature. The other must make compensation by increased assiduity and
devotion to its honor and welfare. The love of wealth--so laudable when
kept within proper limits, so base and mischievous when it exceeds
them--so infectious in its example--an infection to which I fear we
have been too much exposed--should be pursued by no arts in any degree
equivocal, or at any risk of injustice to others. So surely as there is
a just and wise governor of the universe, who punishes the sins of
nations and communities, as well as of individuals, so surely shall we
suffer punishment, if we are indifferent to that moral and intellectual
cultivation of which the means are furnished to us, and to which we are
called and incited by our situation.

I would to heaven I could express, as I feel, the conviction how
necessary this cultivation is, not only to our prosperity and
consideration, but to our safety and very existence. We, the
slaveholding States, are in a hopeless minority in our own confederated
Republic--to say nothing of the great confederacy of civilized States.
It is admitted, I believe, not only by slaveholders, but by others, that
we have sent to our common councils more than our due share of talent,
high character and eloquence.[246] Yet in spite of all these most
strenuously exerted, measures have been sometimes adopted which we
believed to be dangerous and injurious to us, and threatening to be
fatal. What would be our situation, if, instead of these, we were only
represented by ignorant and groveling men, incapable of raising their
views beyond a job or petty office, and incapable of commanding bearing
or consideration? May I be permitted to advert--by no means
invidiously--to the late contest carried on by South Carolina against
Federal authority, and so happily terminated by the moderation which
prevailed in our public counsels. I have often reflected, what one
circumstance, more than any other, contributed to the successful issue
of a contest, apparently so hopeless, in which one weak and divided
State was arraye