heaving volcano.  All movements of the present, looking only to the forms of government of the master, must be carried on before the face of the slave, and the question of class will ever be complicated by that of caste.  What the result of the ever-increasing tendencies of the Cotton dynasty will be it is therefore impossible to more than dream.  But is it fair to presume that the immense servile population should thus see upturnings and revolutions, dynasties rising and falling before their eyes, and ever remain quiet and contented?  “Nothing,” said Jefferson, “is more surely written in the Book of Fate than that this people must be free.”  Fit for freedom at present they are not, and, under the existing policy of the Cotton dynasty, never can be.  “Whether under any circumstances they could become so is not here a subject of discussion; but, surely, the day will come when the white caste will wish the experiment had been tried.  The argument of the Cotton King against the alleviation of the condition of the African is, that his nature does not admit of his enjoyment of true freedom consistently with the security of the community, and therefore he must have none.  But certainly his school has been of the worst.  Would not, perhaps, the reflections applied to the case of the French peasants of a century ago apply also to them?” It is not under oppression that we learn how to use freedom.  The ordinary sophism by which misrule is defended is, when truly stilted, this:  The people must continue in slavery, because slavery has generated in them all the vices of slaves; because they are ignorant, they must remain under a power which has made and which keeps them ignorant; because they have been made ferocious by misgovernment, they must be misgoverned forever.  If the system under which they live were so mild and liberal that under its operation they had become humane and enlightened, it would be safe to venture on a change; but, as this system has destroyed morality, and prevented the development of the intellect,—­as it has turned men, who might, under different training, have formed a virtuous and happy community, into savage and stupid wild beasts, therefore it ought to last forever.  Perhaps the counsellors of King Cotton think that in this case it will; but all history teaches us another lesson.  If there be one spark of love for freedom in the nature of the African,—­whether it be a love common to him with the man or the beast, the Caucasian or the chimpanzee,—­the love of freedom as affording a means of improvement or an opportunity for sloth,—­the policy of King Cotton will cause it to work its way out.  It is impossible to say how long it will be in so doing, or what weight the broad back of the African will first be made to bear; but, if the spirit exist, some day it must out.  This lesson is taught us by the whole recorded history of the world.  Moses leading the Children of Israel up out of Egypt,—­Spartacus at the gates of Rome,—­the Jacquerie in