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Every form of energy and prosperity which tended to
advance a citizen into the class of representative rulers tended also to
make him a slave owner, and to shackle his official policy and purposes
with considerations inseparable from his heavy personal interests. Men
might divide on other questions at the South; but on this question of
slavery the action of the individual had to follow the decisions of a
majority which, by the influence of ambitious aspirants for the lead,
was continually becoming more aggressive. In constitutional countries,
defections to the minority are a steady check upon an aggressive
majority; but the southern majority was a steam engine without a safety
valve.
In this sense Seward and Lincoln, in 1858, were correct; the labor
system of the South was not only a menace to the whole country, but one
which could neither decrease nor stand still. It was intolerable by
the laws of its being; and it could be got rid of only by allowing
a peaceable secession, or by abolishing it through war.


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