nt, they
should still be held the models of all that is profound in science, or
elegant in literature, or all that is great in character, or elevated in
imagination. And perhaps when England herself, who now leads the war
with which we are on all sides threatened, shall have fulfilled her
mission, and like the other glorious things of the earth, shall have
passed away; when she shall have diffused her noble race and noble
language, her laws, her literature, and her civilization, over all
quarters of the earth, and shall perhaps be overrun by some Northern
horde--sunk into an ignoble and anarchical democracy,[250] or subdued to
the dominion of some Caesar,--demagogue and despot,--then, in Southern
regions, there may be found many republics, triumphing in Grecian arts
and civilization, and worthy of British descent and Roman institutions.

If, after a time, when the mind and almost the memory of the republic
were lost, Romans degenerated, they furnish conclusive evidence that
this was owing not to their domestic, but to their political slavery.
The same thing is observed over all the Eastern monarchies; and so it
must be, wherever property is insecure, and it is dangerous for a man to
rise himself to such eminence by intellectual or moral excellence, as
would give him influence over his society. So it is in Egypt; and the
other regions bordering the Mediterranean, which once comprehended the
civilization of the world, where Carthage, Tyre, and Phoenicia
flourished. In short, the uncontradicted experience of the world is,
that in the Southern States where good government and predial and
domestic slavery are found, there are prosperity and greatness; where
either of these conditions is wanting, degeneracy and barbarism. The
former, however, is equally essential in all climates and under all
institutions. And can we suppose it to be the design of the Creator,
that these regions, constituting half of the earth's surface, and the
more fertile half, and more capable of sustaining life, should be
abandoned forever to depopulation and barbarism? Certain it is that they
will never be reclaimed by the labor of freemen. In our own country,
look at the lower valley of the Mississippi, which is capable of being
made a far greater Egypt. In our own State, there are extensive tracts
of the most fertile soil, which are capable of being made to swarm with
life. These are at present pestilential swamps, and valueless, because
there is abun