It is not pleasant to turn from this, and view the reverse of the picture.  But, unless our Southern brethren, in obedience to some great law of trade or morals, return from their divergence,—­if, still being a republic in form, the South close her ears to the great truth, that education is democracy’s first law of self-preservation,—­if the dynasty of King Cotton, unshaken by present indications, should continue indefinitely, and still the South should bow itself down as now before its throne,—­it requires no gift of prophecy to read her future.  As you sow, so shall you reap; and communities, like individuals, who sow the wind, must, in the fulness of time, look to reap the whirlwind.  The Constitution of our Federal Union guaranties to each member composing it a republican form of government; but no constitution can guaranty that universal intelligence of the people without which, soon or late, a republican government must become, not only a form, but a mockery.  Under the Cotton dynasty, the South has undoubtedly lost sight of this great principle; and unless she return and bind herself closely to it, her fate is fixed.  Under the present monopolizing sway of King Cotton,—­soon or late, in the Union, or out of the Union,—­her government must cease to be republican, and relapse into anarchy, unless previously, abandoning the experiment of democracy in despair, she take refuge in a government of force.  The Northern States, the educational communities, have apparently little to fear while they cling closely to the principles inherent in their nature.  With the Servile States, or away from them, the experiment of a constitutional republic can apparently be carried on with success through an indefinite lapse of time; but though, with the assistance of an original impetus and custom, they may temporarily drag along their stumbling brethren of the South, the catastrophe is but deferred, not avoided.  Out of the Union, the more extreme Southern States—­those in which King Cotton has already firmly established his dynasty—­are, if we may judge by passing events, ripe for the result.  The more Northern have yet a reprieve of fate, as having not yet wholly forgotten the lessons of their origin.  The result, however, be it delayed for one year or for one hundred years, can hardly admit of doubt.  The emergency which is to try their system may not arise for many years; but passing events warn us that it maybe upon them now.  The most philosophical of modern French historians, in describing the latter days of the Roman Empire, tells us that “the higher classes of a nation can communicate virtue and wisdom to the government, if they themselves are virtuous and wise:  but they can never give it strength; for strength always comes from below; it always proceeds from the masses.”  The Cotton dynasty pretends not only to maintain a government where the masses are slaves, but a republican government where the vast majority of the higher classes are ignorant.  On the intelligence of the mass