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could be presented against slavery.
When it fixes its chains even upon the minds of the free mechanics of a State the case is bad, indeed, and a reaction cannot long be delayed.
A short time afterwards the white mechanics of
Georgia followed the example set by those of
Virginia, and this gave
Dana a further opportunity to comment upon “the essential and ineradicable antagonism between the slave and free labor,” and especially upon the degradation these mechanics would fix upon tilling the earth and menial domestic service by limiting those occupations to slaves.
Notwithstanding the frequent warnings given by the
South that the discussion of the slavery question by the
Northern journals was weakening the devotion of the
Southern people for the
Union, the
Tribune, and some of the greatest statesmen of the
North, notably Daniel Webster, could not be brought to recognize that there was yet any real danger.
Withal, the greater editors could not confine themselves exclusively to American questions, but occasionally took a view of the whole world.
While
Greeley was still abroad,
Dana, under the caption of “Human Restlessness and divine Providence,” wrote in the following pessimistic strain:
The restlessness of men under their present condition affords the very strongest argument that we can conceive that there is a Divine Providence.
For if men could settle down quietly with the world as it is, the greater part of it uninhabited, unimproved, and unexplored, covered with pestilent marshes, foul jungles, and burning deserts; without canals or railroads, and occupied by wild beasts; the greater part of the civilized states governed in abject tyranny and brutal ignorance; great armies and navies still necessary; pauperism, crime, and prostitution universal scourges; slavery existing in the freest and most enterprising of republics; disorder, discontent, and unhappiness prevailing everywhere;
