n and exercise of almost irresponsible power
over others tend to destroy in the master all power of self-control;
foster intolerance of any legal restraint, of any law but one's own
will, that must either rule or ruin. It is a spirit that is cultivated
assiduously from childhood to youth, and from youth to full age, by
constant and ubiquitous subjection of the negro, young and old, to the
petty tyranny, the whims and caprices of little master and miss, and by
the exercise of authority at all times and in all places by the white
over the black race. It is a spirit that is essential to the slave
driver; and when the habit of dictation and command to inferiors has
grown into every fibre of his nature, he cannot dismiss it when he deals
with his equals, whenever his wishes are opposed. Hence the violence,
the lawlessness, the carrying and free use of deadly weapons, the duels
and murders that are so rife in the South, and the haughty manners of so
many Southern Congressmen. The rebellion is simply the culmination and
breaking forth of this arrogant, domineering, slavery-fostered spirit on
a vast scale. Failing to hold the reins of the National Government, it
must needs destroy it.

Such a temper and disposition is evidently incompatible with human
equality and equal rights; and in it we have one of the roots of
Southern ill-concealed antagonism to free republican government.

2d. The second Southern, or slavery-engendered element that is
antagonistic to free institutions, is contempt of labor.

Could anything else be expected? Because slaves work, and are compelled
to it by the overseer's lash, _all_ labor necessarily partakes of the
disgrace which is thus attached to it. It is surprising how perverted
the Southern mind is upon this point. Because slavery degrades labor,
they maintain that the converse must also be true, viz., that all who
labor must unavoidably possess the spirit of slaves; and hence they
supposed that the North would not make a vigorous opposition, because
all Northerners are addicted to labor.

The truth however is this: Where labor is despised no community can
flourish as it is capable of doing; much less one with free
institutions. We might just as well talk of a body without flesh and
bones; of a house without walls or timbers; of a country without land
and water, as of free institutions without skilled and honorable labor.
It is the very ground on which they stand.

This then is another source o