The great body of the loyal people instinctively felt
that pure socialism is as incompatible with American democracy as
pure individualism; and the abolitionists are well aware that
slavery has been abolished, not for humanitarian or socialistic
reasons but really for reasons of state, in order to save the
territorial democracy. The territorial democracy would not unite
to eliminate even so barbaric an element as slavery, till the
rebellion gave them the constitutional right to abolish it; and
even then so scrupulous were they, that they demanded a
constitutional amendment, so as to be able to make clean work of
it, without any blow to individual or State rights.
The abolitionists were right in opposing slavery, but not in
demanding its abolition on humanitarian or socialistic grounds.
Slavery is really a barbaric element, and is in direct antagonism
to American civilization. The whole force of the national life
opposes it, and must finally eliminate it, or become itself
extinct and it is no mean proof of their utter want of sympathy
with all the living forces of modern civilization, that the
leading men of the South and their prominent friends at the North
really persuaded themselves that with cotton, rice, and tobacco,
they could effectually resist the anti-slavery movement, and
perpetuate their barbaric democracy. They studied the classics,
they admired Greece and Rome, and imagined that those nations
became great by slavery, instead of being great even in spite of
slavery.
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