re THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 99 Soutn would be in the ascendant. The glorification and extension of slavery would be the common watchword Founded by force of arms, the confederation would be an essentially military power. Tae slave aristocral^would have gained its sway, would have tasted the intoxication of glory, and would no longer acknowledge any restraint. Conservative at home, but aggressive abroad, it would no longer be controlled by the cool and almost British good sense of the mercantile North. With the impulse given to commerce by the return of peace, and therewith consequent prosperity, the confederacy, constituted as I describe it, would become a formidable power, and those who desire to see, more than aught else, a powerful State in Northern America, might give it their sympathies, if it had any chances of permanency. But he?e is the difficulty. You may do great things with Slavery : acquire fabulous wealth in a short time, as of old in St. Domingo; call a whole population under arms, while the blacks till the ground, and so sustain a disproportionate struggle such as we now see going on in Virginia: but these are tran sient efforts, and in the long run, slavery exhausts, ruins, and demoralizes all that it touches. Compare the destinies of two great neighboring cities, Louisville and Cincinnati: compare the fate of the first, notwithstanding its immense natural advantages, under the enervating influence of slavery, with the development which its rival owes to Liberty. The fate of Louisville would be that of a Slaveholdiug Union. The old Union, on the contrary, with its slow and prudent, but certain advance towards gradual emancipation, would have resembled Cincinnati. The old Union was a mercantile nation, furnishing Europe with the raw materials indispensable toher industry and offering her an unlimited market for her productions. This nation was useful to all the world, and whatever appearances may have been, it was not at bot tom hostile to anybody. LJC.
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