pi. The lowest stratum
was composed of slaves with a slight intermixture of free Negroes.

Bagehot remarks that slavery "creates a set of persons born to work
that others may not work, and not to think in order that others may
think. Therefore, slave-owning nations, having time to think, are
likely to be more shrewd in policy, and more crafty in strategy[318]."
This is amply illustrated in the case of southern leaders. The sons of
the slaveholders received the best education the land could afford;
the plantation life gave a training in administration and leadership
and with leisure and natural political talent they looked to public
life for advancement. Those who showed ability in local or State
governments were advanced to the House or Senate so that by a process
of natural selection the slave-power at the South was able to develop
leaders, who not only moulded the public sentiment of the South itself
but shaped the policies of the nation for the better part of half a
century[319].

Thus, by a slow process of evolution, was built up in the "black
belt" of the South an industrial empire, based upon slavery, nominally
democratic, but in reality an oligarchy composed of a group of
talented men, united in their traditions, social standards and
political ideals by virtue of their common loyalty to the "peculiar
institution" of their section. It was democratic within its own
limits, chivalrous, cultured although it cherished ideals essentially
at variance with democratic institutions and bound in time to give
birth to a social consciousness that was incompatible with that
entertained by the rest of the nation. When the slave-power was
defeated at the polls in the election of 1860, secession was the
logical result.

The status of the Negro, both slave and free, was intimately
associated with this economic development of the far South. There is
much to indicate that the entire South gradually underwent a profound
change of attitude towards slavery in the three decades from 1800 to
1830. Slavery was generally looked upon as an evil by the southern
leaders of the time of the constitutional convention and for two
decades afterwards, perhaps. Mason of Virginia in the debates of 1787
stated that slavery discouraged the arts and manufactures, prevented
immigration of whites, exercised a most pernicious effect upon
manners, made every master a petty tyrant and would bring the judgment
of heaven down upon the country. Baldwin, spe