Such were the facts that confronted them, such the external circumstances that developed new ideas and new modes of thought in the colonists of Virginia, such the potent _causes_ that changed the descendants of English cavaliers into the earliest, most consistent, and most reliable champions of democracy in America. The same causes, to a certain extent, influenced the inhabitants of other colonies, and it will be found that in precise proportion to the amount and the fixedness of this negro element in any locality, there were clear, corresponding views of liberty and equality among white men. Indeed, this is as true now as ever before, and almost invariably there are sound and rational views of liberty and of democratic institutions in precise proportion to the presence, or imperfect and unsound notions in proportion to the absence, of this negro element. Those States like Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, and Alabama, that have relatively the largest negro population, are the most decidedly and consistently democratic, while Massachusetts, Vermont, etc., with the fewest negroes among them, are the most unsound in these respects, and however intelligent in regard to other things, are certainly behind most of the great American communities in political knowledge. South Carolina, and perhaps some others, may seem exceptions to this very general truth, but if so in reality, it is owing to peculiar causes, such as the education of many of its people abroad, in Europe, and at the North, etc., but even as regards that State, so exceptional in many respects, land is more equally divided than in any other State, and where such a fact obtains, the general tendency to equality in citizenship must be strikingly manifested.