their condition, and fell to a continually greater extent, financially and mentally, under the control of the class which had so much the advantage of them in wealth and culture, and the influences which spring from them. The resources of the South were only partly developed, and a great loss to the general community was sustained, while various minor evils gradually came to the surface and increased in magnitude. Among the most important of these was the mental stagnation of the lower grade of whites and the unintelligent character of labor. It ultimately seemed evident that no region where labor was merely mechanical, where it had no mental stimulus or progressiveness in skill, could compete with regions where the contrary ruled. Resources are developed from the mental force that is put into the work, and the intelligence that controls the muscles of the laborer must, ordinarily, to produce eminent results, dwell in the same body. Oversight and direction, however intelligent, can not produce results in comparison with intelligent labor. Unintelligent labor is not flexible, not at ready command when changes are desirable, and immediate results are less with the same capital and numbers. For a moderate period this is not particularly observable, but in the end the difference is very great.

Yet, the loss in this direction was partly balanced by the gain in another. The depression of the two classes operated to raise the third. Among the immigrants to the Valley in the South were many gentlemen of the class that did such honorable service to liberty during the Revolution. Many were descended from the chivalry of England and France, where the blood of their forefathers had been "gentle " back to the dim twilight of modern European history. Many of the French in Louisiana were descended from the higher classes of the Mother Country; and the settlers from the southern Atlantic States included many whose hereditary endowments embraced all the advantages and tendencies of distinguished origin. They were gentlemen by birth, by position such as

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wealth and culture can give, and by the fine instincts and native dignity and intelligence which are the only excuses for an aristocracy.

To such natural leaders were joined the enterprising and successful who made equal fortunes by ability and the special favor of circumstances. These very often included persons who were coarse and rude, not very susceptible of refinement, though, for the most part, they caught, more or less, the spirit of the society to which success introduced them. After the beginnings were past and large incomes were secured, these classes usually committed the care of labor on their estates to overseers and had abundant leisure; the education of their families was usually cared for without regard to expense; society became increasingly refined. The fervent climate which stimulated the generous qualities of the race, the freedom from care, the large incomes and the isolation of country life on large plantations, gave a rare geniality and compass to social qualities and furnished the singular spectacle in the newly broken wilderness and the mixed population, hastily and recently collected from many regions, of a society of which the oldest countries might be proud.

This class, when fairly developed and dominant in the South, contained a few hundred thousand among several millions of whites; but their mental influence was deeply felt throughout the Union. They possessed many most agreeable and valuable qualities. Generous and amiable, with an assured position and abundant incomes, they were rarely severe masters and the kindness and sympathy of the patriarchal relation was much more frequently represented between the master and servant than the outside world was inclined to believe. With some painful exceptions, gentleness, rather than severity, characterized the master. Pecuniary difficulty, which sometimes broke up life-long relations, the occasional tyranny of paid overseers, or the rise to wealth of coarse and violent men-all which must be considered exceptions to the rule-were the

common causes of abuse of power and oppression of the helpless. The absoluteness and fixity of the relation usually rendered the master the more ready in kindness.

The servant was of the gentlest of races, apparently wanting in the mental robustness and force required for strong self-assertion, revering the master and his race as superior beings, with an overflowing abundance of light-heartedness and the emotional nature that readily seeks expression in strong attachment. This race was but a few generations removed from absolute barbarism, at the longest, and many had been born in it. The favorable influence of their white masters on them must now be conceded in comparing their conduct, during and after the civil war, with that of the same race under self-government in Hayti, or under English control after liberation in Jamaica. It can not be doubted that more happiness and less suffering reigned among the mass of Southern slaves during servitude than after they became freedmen. It is being tested whether or not they can, as a race, maintain with honor the character and dignity of citizens on their own resources. No trial can be considered complete until generations shall have displayed their tendencies and real capaci ties. Character is of slow growth; yet the commencement is full of promise.

Perhaps the finest and most honorable character in which the Southern slaveholder appeared was in that of an American citizen. Largely of aristocratic descent, habits and immediate surroundings, he proved an American and a republican of the most pronounced type in all that related to the white race. No class in the republic more forcibly advocated or applied the principles, constitutional and judicial, on which it was based. Leaving the colored man aside, he was in fullest sympathy with that which was most distinctively American. The Constitutions of the Gulf States were even more liberal in admitting the elective principle to its fullest development than those of the New England States. The planter had leisure

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and ambition and threw himself, with French vivacity and Anglo-Saxon heartiness, into political life. The South long exerted a controlling influence on the politics of the country, and its general liberal development may testify that its influence was not injurious. The people of the Southern Valley were of more purely American descent, the great food of European immigration being chiefly dispersed over the free States of the upper basin. The instincts of the class and their course in all matters unconnected with slavery were, and are, an honor to the Anglo-American race.

CHAPTER XIX.

FOREIGN IMMIGRANTS AS AMERICAN CITIZENS.

The Colonies which, in 1776, declared their independence, and permanently established the Republic of the United States of America, had been more than one hundred and fifty years in reaching a total population of about three million. In 1790 the population of the whole country was about 3,200,000 whites and 700,000 blacks. The growth had been slow. The population of New England in 1760 was not far from 400,000, almost all of which was the increase of the twenty thousand Anglo-Saxons who emigrated from England between 1620 and 1650. The larger part of the immigrants who formed the other colonies came from Europe previous to 1700, and had long been undergoing the process of transformation from Anglo-Saxons to Anglo-Americans. The emigrants from continental Europe were an inconsiderable number compared with those from the British Isles and proved themselves true Americans during the war. That contest and its results proved that a new race had commenced its career during colonial times.

Previous to 1820 comparatively few foreigners found their way to the Valley. Probably not more than 150,000 out of the 2,500,000 then inhabiting the Valley were of foreign birth, including the French of the Louisiana Purchase and the Spanish of Florida. Accurate figures are not attainable, but that seems a fair estimate. After 1820 statistics of immigration were officially kept. From that year up to 1825 less than 40,000 foreigners spread over the whole country. Of these not over 25,000 came to the West. From 1825 to 1830, including the former but not the latter year, something more than 90,000 foreigners settled in the whole country. The population of the Valley had increased about a million and a half, not over