Every man who has dispassionately endeavored to enlighten himself in
the matter cannot but see, that, for the many, the course of things in
slaveholding states is substantially what we have described, a
downward one, more or less rapid, in civilization and in all those
results of material prosperity which in a free country show themselves
in the general advancement for the good of all and give a real meaning
to the word Commonwealth. No matter how enormous the wealth centred in
the hands of a few, it has no longer the conservative force or the
beneficent influence which it exerts when equably distributed,--even
loses more of both where a system of absenteeism prevails so largely
as in the South. In such communities the seeds of an "irrepressible
conflict" are purely, if slowly, ripening, and signs are daily
multiplying that the true peril to their social organization is looked
for, less in a revolt of the owned labor than in an insurrection of
intelligence in the labor that owns itself and finds itself none the
richer for it. To multiply such communities is to multiply weakness.
The election in November turns on the single and simple question,
Whether we shall consent to the indefinite multiplication of them; and
the only party which stands plainly and unequivocally pledged against
such a policy, nay, which is not either openly or impliedly in favor
of it, is the Republican party. We are of those who at first regretted
that another candidate was not nominated at Chicago; but we confess
that we have ceased to regret it, for the magnanimity of Mr.
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