The economical tendency of the Cotton dynasty is therefore to
divide the master-class yet more distinctly into the two great opposing
orders of society. On the one hand we see the capitalist owning the
labor of a thousand slaves, and on the other the laboring white unable,
under the destructive influence of a profitable monopoly, to make any
use of that labor which is his only property.
What influence, then, has the Cotton dynasty on that portion of the
master-class who are without capital? Its tendency has certainly
necessarily been to make their labor of little value; but they are still
citizens of a republic, free to come and go, and, in the eye of the law,
equal with the highest;--on them, in times of emergency, the government
must rest; their education and intelligence are its only sure
foundations. But, having made this class the vast majority of the
master-caste, what are the policy and tendency of the Cotton dynasty
as touching them? The story is almost too old to bear even the
shortest repetition. Philosophically, it is a logical necessity
of the Cotton dynasty that it should be opposed to universal
intelligence;--economically, it renders universal intelligence an
impossibility.
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