Have the slave-owners thus gone on from victory to victory
and from strength to strength by reason of their multitude, of their
wealth, of their public services, of their intelligence, of their
wisdom, of their genius, or of their virtue? Success in gigantic
crime sometimes implies a strength and energy which compel a kind of
respect even from those that hate it most. The right supremacy of the
power that thus sways our destiny clearly does not reside in the
overwhelming numbers of those that bear rule. The entire sum of all
who have any direct connection with Slavery, as owners or hirers, is
less than THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND,--not half as many as the
inhabitants of the single city of New York! And yet even this number
exaggerates the numerical force of the dominant element in our
affairs. To approximate to the true result, it would be fair to strike
from the gross sum those owning or employing less than ten slaves, in
order to arrive at the number of slave-owners who really compose the
ruling influence of the nation.
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