nal
and successful assault. Will it be successful? We cannot believe it.

* * * * *

What is the cause of this wicked, heaven-defying, insane movement on the
part of the South? The answer is written in flames of light along the
sky, and in letters of blood upon the breadth of the land. Slavery
first, slavery middle, and slavery last. Accursed slavery! firstborn of
the evil one--the lust of dominion over others for one's own selfish
purposes, in its naked, most shameless, and undisguised form. Dominion
of man over man in other modes, such as absolute monarchy, aristocracy,
feudalism, ecclesiastical rule--all these justify their exactions under
the plea of the welfare of the subject, or the salvation of souls.
Slavery has nothing of the kind behind which to hide its monstrosity;
nor does it care to do so, except when hard pushed, and then it feebly
pleads the christianization of the negro! A plea at which the common
sense of mankind and of Christendom simply laughs.

Now slavery, we know, is just the reverse of freedom, and hence it is
only natural to expect that the fruits, the results of slavery, wherever
its influence extends, would closely partake of the nature of their
parent and cause. Slavery, then, as the antipodes of freedom, must
engender in the community that harbors and fosters it, habits,
sentiments, and modes of life continually diverging from, and ever more
and more antagonistic to, whatever proceeds from free institutions.

Let us look at some of these. There are four points of antagonism
between free and slave institutions that seem to stand out more
prominently than others; at any rate, we shall not now extend our
inquiry beyond them.

Slavery, then, begets in the ruling class:

1. An excessive spirit of domineering and command;

2. A contempt of labor;

3. A want of diversified industry;

4. These three results produce a fourth, viz., a division of slave
society into a wealthy, all-powerful slaveholding aristocracy on
the one hand; and an ignorant, impoverished, and more or less
degraded non-slaveholding class on the other.

It is at once seen how slavery develops to the utmost, in the master and
dominant race, a habit of command, of self-will, of determination to
have one's own way at all hazards, of intolerance of any contradiction
or opposition; of quickness to take offence, and to avenge and right
one's self. The possessio