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These wholesome good old punishments would keep cowardly rascals quiet; extinguish the resolute scoundrels; and, in due time, purge off the bad blood of the body politic, and leave the remaining circulation free from malignant and spasmodic fren

zies.

It would discourage the obtrusion of demagogues and factionists, and contribute to the establishment of a rule for the honest selection of faithful and competent persons for the public confidence and favor.

"For who shall go about

To cozen fortune, and be honorable,

Without the stamp of merit! Let none presume
To wear an undeserved dignity.

O that estates, degrees, and offices

Were not derived corruptly! and that clear honor
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer?
How many then should cover that stand bare?
How many be commanded that command?
How much low peasantry would then be glean'd
From the true seed of honor? and how much honor
Picked from the chaff and ruin of the times.

(Merchant of Venice, Act ii., S. 9.)

An explanation of the sources and causes of the depravities adverted to may be further understood by a slight reference to the original and germinating character of the mind and the passions.

Their development in the social and conventional relations produces the diversified shades, conditions, and arbitrary distinctions already described.

The heart, in its primitive state, is under no selfish feelings; but is impulsive, social, and guileless.

Children, women, and those in the rural and unsophisticated spheres of life, have no secrets or notions of inequality. In sickness and affliction, they mutually sympathize; in health and prosperity, they help and share with each other; and in joy and mirth, with unaffected emotions of sincerity and kindness, they join in reciprocations of artless interest and love. It does not occur to them that the peace and honor of society can be promoted by unmeaning and artificial distinctions, established by arbitrary customs; that human happiness is attained and secured by shutting the door of social hospitality in the face of all who may not be born within, or married into, the capricious circle formed by their frigid despotism; and that purity of heart

and life, and the light of thought and soul, are not the richest attributes of Heaven's holy aristocracy.

But when the passions are wakened up by worldly excitement, all the kind and generous inclinations are displaced by cupidity, pride, and selfishness.

Usages, laws, and customs, which are written in no book, or recorded upon any tablet, are then arbitrarily ordained and unjustly enforced without warning or explanation, and all the world required to submit to their insolent prescriptions without

a murmur.

Can any one tell who made the law, or explain the reason for its authority; that a palace or coach should be more respected than a cottage or an ox-cart? why the proud and the rich should be more esteemed than the poor and the humble?

Why arrogance is genteel, and humility degrading? why idleness is tolerated, and labor neglected? why licentiousness is winked at, and purity is doubted; extravagance encouraged, and economy sneered at; temperance ridiculed, and drunkenness pitied; swindling excused, and honesty questioned? why rudeness, cruelty, extortion, oppression, fraud, and violence are favored and suffered instead of being universally and indignantly condemned?

The explanation is found in the arrogance by which the selfish spirit of man excuses and sanctions, as lawful and right, that which most accommodates his depraved and secret appetites.

Municipal laws are so exposed to evasions as to render them almost useless; while the arbitrary dictations of the most sordid and sinister passions are obeyed with servile obedience.

However we affect to prefer good to evil, all the secret impulses are bad; and their indulgence is allowed just as opportunity occurs, or recklessness prevails.

In the exercise of these inclinations, there is no constraint but the conscience; if that is weak, or discouraged, there is no motive to govern but policy.

Those who hold the power promulgate these arbitrary laws; and those who are not supreme yield to the dictations of their superiors from necessity, policy, and fear; and, also, because that which is wrong really suits their wishes best; and so that they in their turn may employ the same oppressions upon those under them.

Immense numbers acquiesce for peace's sake, and from sheer

ignorance, feeling and acting upon the notion that those who are better off, and have more impudence than they, must know more, and are in the right. So that, from a combination of these and other causes, society is scourged by a code of despotic and vacillating edicts, infinitely more stringent and severe than the acknowledged and written laws of God and man.

What people say and think is held to be fundamentally right, without the least regard to justice or honor. And, as the bad, and not the good propensities govern, so must those opinions, prejudices, and rules, which spring from these sources, be most fashionable, acceptable, and popular.

The municipal law forbids swindling, dueling, and gambling. The law of public opinion upholds and encourages them.

If the restraints and penalties of the laws of God and man are evaded by trick and fraud, the popular exultation breaks out in shouts of joy; while he who refuses to accept or challenge to fight with deadly weapons is denounced as a poltroon and a coward; and those who refuse to consort with fashionable rogues and genteel gamesters are sneered at, and put in coventry, as vulgar clodhoppers. [The three last points referred to are discussed in Chapter XVIII.]

From these pernicious and imperious influences, there has been in all ages a prevalence of the most destructive and scandalous aristocracies.

They are distinguished, first, by a race of robbers and murderers, who ride rough-shod over all law, and seat themselves on thrones, and rule with fire and sword."

They summon to their ready service myriads of kindred fiends, with power to hold perpetual feudal sway; sweating the earth, and scourging man and beast, to feed their gluttony and lust.

Then follows the aristocracy of politics, with its immense train of love-sick patriots, brawling senators, crafty ministers of state, cunning ambassadors, hungry office-seekers, and corrupt and tyrannical office-holders, who lie, lounge, plunder, and betray.

Next are seen the Shylocks of mammon, dealers, peddlers, stock and corporation jobbers, who inflate the world with frauds, and villanies, and infest it with ignorance, debauchery, madness, beggary, and crime.

These are closely pursued by a pernicious flock of rooks, bats, vultures, and kites, with swarms of vermin, reptiles, and human

monsters, decorated with dazzling and glittering pageantry, flaunting to the high heavens gorgeous banners, radiant with riches, power, and splendor. They startle up the bewildered world with soft and thrilling raptures, and hold them, by mysterious spells and charms, in agonies of sensual transport and brutal lust. They wield the magic sceptre of universal fashion, and wear the imperial crown of popular and facinorous sway; and their oracles speak from the Gods of Moloch and Sodom.

These faint and imperfect hints may serve to touch the perplexed heart with profitable thoughts, and warn the baffled soul to mark, detect, and shun the poisonous ground, the rancorous roots, the upas trees, and fungi fruits, that blight and blast man's peace and hope on earth

ACCURSED ARISTOCRACY!

CHAPTER XIII.

SLAVERY.

Those for and against it violent-No slavery lawful-God made all men free-No human power can authorize it-Abstract law-The law of, in the United States, discussed-Are slaves property ?—The District of Columbia-In the territories of the United States-In new States-Of fugitive slaves, remedy.

“All men are created equal.”—Declaration of Independence.

THE advocates and adversaries of slavery reciprocate vituperations so degrading as to banish all decent auditors.

No man can hear their fierce personal onsets, and their foul and vulgar language, without disgust.

One set is proscribed and accused as auctioneers in human flesh; and the other as mad and wilful conspirators for fire and murder.

No allowances are made for the force of education and necessity on one side, nor for excitement and fervor on the other. Both claim for themselves the purest, and deny to each other the slightest, motives of sincerity.

The abolitionists charge the slaver with pagan infidelity; while they, in turn, are charged with stirring up revolt, and encouraging bloodshed and desolation.

Nothing can be so absurd as to hear a slave-driver professing or holding forth the pure examples of our Saviour; or to hear a fanatical and abusive amalgamationist making impious appeals to his Maker.

The result is that but little true light is obtained from these sources, as is always the case with those who quarrel, or who make a trade or an agony of what they practice.

If all they say of each other is true or false, it boots not; for the merits or demerits, the right or wrong, of human bondage is a question by itself, which belongs to the conscience; and there, within the secret and solemn meditations of the soul, it must be decided.

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