THE HE recent exciting and protracted contest, as to the organization of Congress, was significant, in more respects than one. It was a topical symptom of a general state, showing a large amount of derangement, and yet a tendency to recuperation.

We saw the representatives of the people brought to a complete deadlock by the antagonism of parties, each pulling a different way, with no one strong enough to prevail, and no two seemingly ready to coalesce. For two months, nearly, the usual course of legislation was suspended on the settlement of a preliminary dispute as to the Speakership. Yet the House of Representatives was never more truly representative than in this temporary paralysis of its functions; for the whole nation is in pretty nearly the same predicament. Its politics are decussated, if we may use the expression, not by well-defined parties, but by numerous opposing factions. Their conflicts, but for the seriousness of the subjects involved, would exhibit as droll a spectacle as Marryatt describes in his triangular duel. The Republicans, taking a pistol in either hand, fire away at the Democrats and the Americans; the Americans, doing the same, fire at the Republicans and the Democrats; while the Democrats, again, discharge their pieces at the Americans and the Republicans. Everybody shoots at everybody else; and everybody, let him aim in whatever direction he will, is sure to aim at an enemy, who is also aiming at him, thus rendering the exposure equal, and the chances of sudden disaster somewhat even. It was evident, however, during the struggle in the House, in spite of the seeming and superficial differences of opinion among the several factions, that there was, radically, but a single issue. Each member felt, as he gave his vote for this or that candidate, though he was not always ready to avow it, that the turning-point of all was, the question of slavery. All the other questions, which may have operated in forming little knots of voters, were incidental, or aside, like the small eddies which whirl about in the very current of the principal vortex. Banks and Aiken were the leaders of the hosts

between which the real battle was fought, while they who shouted for Fuller, Zollikoffer, and what not, were only deserters from the main ranks, or camp-followers and marplots.

Nor were leaders ever chosen with more instinctive wisdom, considering the peculiarity of their relations to this predominant issue. Mr. Banks was a man of the people, who had risen by his own efforts from an humble mechanical occupation to a high political office; while Mr. Aiken was a slaveholder, one of the wealthiest of his class, endowed with all the better qualities of that class, and as sincere as he was strong in his geographical convictions. Mr. Banks represented the state of Massachusettsitself the best example of a free condition of society to be found on the face of the earth; while Mr. Aiken represented South Carolina-long distinguished as the ablest exponent of both the opinions and the influences of the slave-civilization. In these, their champions, therefore, the two social systems of the North and South were pitted against each other, and, for the first time so openly and directly, in the history of our national existence.

In the same way, the nation, in the midst of the parties and agitations by which it is distracted, recognizes the fundamental and vital question to be that of slavery. Wink it out of sight as we may, or complicate it as we may, it can not be disguised, that slavery is the single real element of party divisions. Openly or secretly, it controls the action of all parties. They come together, as in the case of the Americans, for other ostensible purposes; but before they separate, are fiercely at loggerheads about this matter. Every ancient partyorganization has been sundered by it, and their members, in forming new party ties, are almost exclusively controlled by it. The first condition they enact, before joining any body is, that it should think thus and so of the slavery question.

But what is the slavery question? What is the real issue at the bottom of the excitement which gathers about this word slavery, as a nucleus? Let us answer, in the first place, that it is not a question as to the merits of slavery in

itself, or rather in its adaptation to those communities in which it already exists. With the exception of a certain class of philanthropists, who conceive it their duty to wage war against every form of what they deem injustice everywhere, we know of no class in this country who wish to interfere with those communities. At any rate, there is no distinct or formidable political party professing such an object. A great many individuals at the North, as freemen, not indifferent to the cause of humanity, claim the right to consider and criticize Southern society, just as they do the various societies of Europe and Asia. But the great body of the people have never evinced any aggressive disposition beyond that, and are willing to leave the practical treatment of slavery, in the states, to those who know its evils, and are to be presumed best able to devise a remedy. What concerns them solely and exclusively is, the relation of slavery to their own. interests and responsibilities. It might be conceded that the peculiar socialism of the South is the best for it, under the circumstances, that human wisdom can conceive; or, that it has the divine sanction-being equally beneficial to the white and black races, without touching the marrow of our public dispute.

For the real question, let us remark, in the second place, arises out of the struggle of two incompatible orders of civilization for the mastery of a common field. It has fallen to the lot of this country to make the attempt to confederate a series of states, separated by two distinct social systems; and, though the attempt is not impracticable in itself, nor was it impracticable under the original conditions, nor is yet impracticable, could these conditions be adhered to the actual working of the experiment has developed a broad and serious antagonism. The evidences of a latent difference have appeared, from time to time, from the beginning; but they were adjusted by our wise statesmen of the past, as they appeared, on the principle of peaceful compromise. In a late fatal and perfidious hour, however, that principle was flung to the winds, and the elements of discord left to the chance of a hand-to-hand encounter. As the first result of the abandonment, the western breezes brought to our ears, from the plains of Kansas,

murmurs of warlike preparations; even as we write,

"From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,

The hum of either army stilly sounds;" and long before our article shall be read, perhaps, the din of civil war will have broken the distant solitudes.

The controversy, between what may be termed our Northern and Southern civilizations, presents two aspects: first, whether the influences of the one or the other shall predominate in the federal government; and, secondly, whether the one or the other of these influences shall prevail in the organization of new territories. Virtually, these questions are one; for whichever side succeeds in regard to the first point, will be sure to succeed in regard to the second, and vice versa.

As to the first aspect of it, we are all aware what the facts of the case have been hitherto; we are all aware, that for many years the interests of slavery have carried the day completely, in nearly every department of the national government. The executive has always inclined to that side, and so has the judiciary, and, with occasional exceptions, both branches of the legislature. It came to such a pass, indeed, at last, that no man, whatever his capacities or claims, who was in the least adverse to that interest, was allowed to hold the lowest office of profit or honor under the general government, and much less to achieve any of its higher places. It is true, at this hour, that the most illustrious poet of his country, that its most illustrious historian, that its most illustrious philosopher, that its most illustrious novelist (were she a man) could not be made a gate-keeper of the public grounds at Washington, if he desired to be; and that for the simple reason, that having formed a different theory of social life from the one which obtains at the South, he has been honest enough to express it. Even the most eminent statesmen of former days, our Jeffersons, our Franklins, our Jays, and our Adamses, could they arise from their graves, and write what they once wrote, would be excluded forever from political employment. Thus, the men of the North, who are born to freedom, who are cradled to rest by the songs of its surges as they roll in from the lakes and oceans, who inhale it with every breath blown from their eternal hills, and who,

should they fail to extol it, would be recreant to the earliest and deepest inspirations of their lives, are begirt by an intolerance more exclusive than that which disgraced the ostracism of the Athenian demos, or the interdicts of the mediaval papacy. The men of New England, and New York, of Ohio, and Wisconsin, are yet called upon to adopt the peculiar sentiments of the men of Georgia, and Texas, or at least to hold their tongues from the temerity of criticism or disapproval, on pain of political banishment. Let them but once whisper abroad any disparagement of slavery, though it were in the friendliest tone, with the sincerest convictions, under an earnest and conscientious sense of its important bearings, and straightway they are marked men. Now, against this they contend and protest; it is a dictation so arrogant, that to submit to it would be to deserve it; and every impulse of self-respect, honor, and liberty prompts them to avoid that humiliation.

The more immediate and pressing aspect of the great controversy, however, is that which relates to the future destiny of the territories. It presents this simple alternative-whether, contrasting the effects of the free condition of society with those of the slave, we ought to abandon our virgin soils to the occupation of the one, or solemnly consecrate them to the use of the other? As a nation, we have had a broad and ample experience of the influences of both systems on the prosperity of states, and we are summoned to a decision between them. In this view, the question is one, we repeat, not of races, nor of abstract theories of rights, nor even of religious convictions (although all these will influence the decision), but of actual facts. Demonstrated before us, lie the results of two social experiments, and we are asked, in the light of those demonstrations, to determine which it is best to apply, in the formation of our young and inchoate communities. A brood of such communities is growing up under our fostering wings; our duty is, to launch them in the world, as a good parent would send forth his sons, furnished with the best appliances for a healthful, sober, manly, and generous career; and the choice lies in this whether that furniture shall come from the pens and plantations of slavery, or from the factories and free-schools of freedom.

There could be no better illustration of the proper solution of this problem, than the experiences of the two states, which lately appeared, through their representatives, in the congressional arena, as the standard-bearers of either party. Massachusetts and South Carolina are both old, and both sea-board states, which took a conspicuous part in our revolutionary war; which were present at the formation of the Constitution; which have since grown, side by side, under their characteristic systems; which cling, with great tenacity, to the principles of these, and which are remarkable for the vigor with which they represent their effects. At the outset, South Carolina was about four times as large as Massachusetts, territorially, and is still; but this advantage is partly compensated by the fact, that Massachusetts began with about one-third more total population. Massachusetts, however, was democratically organized into a system of separate, and almost independent townships, each a centre of government in itself, while South Carolain, from the necessity of the case, was centrally organized into parishes,having little or no local authority, and, for the most part, dependent on the principal, or state government. The people of Massachusetts have retained that organization, and with it, the most entire freedom of every inhabitant; while the people of South Carolina have also, with slight modifications, retained their system, and with it, the servitude of nearly the whole laboring class. Now, what have been the effects, on the prosperity of each, of these two contrasted constitutions?

The elements of national greatness, in their three-fold material, intellectual and moral forms, are universally summed up, under the heads of population, productive industry, the diffusion of wealth, internal improvement, popular education, and social order. But who,

that has ever traveled over the two states we are considering, or taken the pains to compare their statistics, as given in the usual authorities, can have failed to remark their broad and striking differences, in all these respects? Supposing their social systems equally well adapted to their respective localities, and the genius of their people, there is a notable disparity in the practical results.

On the one part, we behold a con

siderable progress; but on that of the other, a prodigious one. On the one side, we behold a large and fertile soil, under a delicious climate, thinly peopled and poorly cultivated; and, on the other, a barren soil, under inclement skies, teeming with towns and cities, and cultivated to the extreme. On the one side, the industry, though productive, is, in many respects, careless, thriftless, and improvident, confined to a few branches which increase slowly; while on the other, the productiveness of the industry exceeds that of any part of the globe, excepting a few sugar and coffee estates of the torrid zone, and is richly varied, and advancing. On the one side is a slender commerce; and, on the other, a commerce which sweeps the seas. On the one side are bad roads, and few of them; while, on the other, is a chevaux de frise of rail-roads. On the one side is a puny and unprolific intellectual activity; and, on the other, an intellectual activity which leaves no child untaught, and scarcely a man unlettered. On the one side is a society irrevocably divided into castes, where a debased and inferior race grows in numbers and strength, to the increasing embarrassment of the superior race, and amidst the derision of the civilized world; while, on the other, is a homogeneous society, where every

man enjoys the means of the highest culture and the securest happiness, and the future expands and brightens, with new prospects of social achievement.* Every year is plunging South Carolina into deeper troubles and dangers, from which her most sagacious and even hopeful minds see no escape but civil war; while every year is lifting Massachusetts toward a more secure and benignant eminence of Christian civilization.

Our argument does not mean to assert that South Carolina ought to adopt the institutions of Massachusetts, because we have no occasion to go into such an inquiry here; but what it does assert is this, that if a high degree of prosperity be desirable to a nation, if a thriving population, if universal industry, if the rapid increase, and equitable diffusion of wealth, if general improvement, if education and religion, in short, if a harmonious growth and widening prospects for the future, be the tests of that prosperity, then the institutions of Massachusetts are vastly better in themselves, and in respect to all communities in which they are practicable, than the institutions of South Carolina. say, that the experience of these states has shown, incontestably, the superiority of the free condition of society, and that we, as honest patriots and Chris

We

tian men, are bound, by all human wisdom, and all divine law, to prefer those institutions, where either may be adopted, as in our new territories. We are bound to secure to our friends and descendants in those regions, to which, under our guardianship, they have removed, every highest guaranty and facility of future well-being.

But the superiority of free society, so signally exhibited in the contrasts of the two great and powerful states we have named, is confirmed by the experience of all the states. The relative position of the free states, compared with the slave states, is accurately denoted by the relations of Massachusetts and South Carolina. Free society is always on the lead; and one of the established principles of political economy is,

that it must be so that it cannot be otherwise; that God would be forgetful of the laws he has implanted in the human constitution, and in the universe, if he did not render freedom the most benignant of all conditions. Mr. Henry C. Carey, in a most valuable book of his,* has shown, by a rigid induction from the statistics of four nations-India, France, England, and the United States -that in everything which involves the success, the happiness, and the moral elevation of their people, their eminence is in a precise ratio to their political freedom. He proves, specifically, and beyond a doubt, that, in respect to the security of person and property; in respect to quantity and quality of work; in respect to the profits of capital, and the wages of labor; in respect to the equable distribution of wealth, and exemption from taxes; in respect to the soundness and extension of credit; in respect to facility of intercourse, and habits of industry; in respect to purity of marriage and growth of population; in respect to the absence of crime, and even of disease; and, finally, in respect to literary and religious instruction, the condition of nations is measured by their freedom. It is such an overwhelming demonstration, as no defender of despotism, in any of its shapes, has ever undertaken to refute, or even cared to notice. Yet a similar demonstration is possible, in regard to the free and slave states of this Union. It can be shown, as it has been already, we believe more than once, that a clear line of distinction

separates the two, in all these elements of high civilization. And how could it be otherwise? The condition of slavery, confining its laborious classes, for the most part, to simple agricultural labor, does not stimulate, and scarcely admits of that variety and magnificence of product, which is the mark of high physical development, whilst it is still more deficient in the means of intellectual and moral progress. Its superior class often attains the most elevated point, both of character and culture, but its masses, with here and there an individual exception, cannot rise above the lowest level.

All this, however, needs no protracted discussion. Do not the nine hundred and ninety-nine men, out of every thousand, at the North-yea, more than that-honestly believe, that a free society is, in every sense, preferable to a slave society? Are there not thousands upon thousands at the south, who believe the same thing, who openly confess the superiority of the former, and justify the continuation of the latter solely upon the ground, that it was an unavoidable inheritance, of which it is now difficult, if not impossible, to get relieved? Wo have ourselves conversed with many such men; we could cite, if we liked, from books, innumerable such opinions; but, indeed, this view is so almost universal, that we need be at no pains to prove its existence.

We ought, perhaps, to except a few southern speculators, who, following the lead of Mr. Calhoun, have, not only asserted that slavery is a positive good, and a finality, but who profess to have discovered the most alarming weaknesses in free society. They see in it a thousand elements of evil-in the relation of labor and capital, a future war between the rich and poor-in its excitability, the seeds of a desolating fanaticism, and in its party violences, a most speedy anarchy. Poor fellows! were there ever theories more excessively shallow!

No observant man is, of course, insensible of the many lingering defects and evils of our free society. If he have studied it minutely, he will not regard it as by any means perfect or final: but, on the comparison of it with other societies, and after every abatement, he will come to a quite positive conclusion,