In conclusion, therefore, that is repeated in direct terms which has been rather inferred than directly stated. The presence of the _negro on this continent, our juxtaposition with a widely different and inferior race, and the existence of natural distinctions or natural lines of demarcation in human society, originating of necessity new ideas and modes of thought, has been the happiest conjunction that has ever occurred in human affairs, and has led directly to the establishment of a new system and a new civilization based on foundations of everlasting truth—the legal and political equality of the race, or of all those whom the Almighty Creator has Himself made equal_. CHAPTER XXII. THE ALLIANCE OF NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN PRODUCERS. In the foregoing chapter it has been shown how “slavery,” or the presence of the negro element in our midst, has given origin to the American idea of democracy—to more expanded and truthful conceptions of our true relations to each other—to mental habits which led Mr. Jefferson to promulgate the grand idea of equality in 1776—to make that great movement a revolution of ideas as well as a war of independence—to render the latter a mere preliminary for ushering in a new political system based on the equal rights of citizenship and the starting-point of a new civilization widely and radically different in its fundamental idea from anything ever before known in the political experience of mankind. It has been shown that Hamilton and Jefferson, the respective leaders and exponents of the opposing ideas and tendencies of the time, merely reflected the mental habits that belonged to the different social conditions then existing, or of the different constituencies which they represented, and after the great contest for independence which they passed through harmoniously was closed and a new system of government was to be created, that the ideas of Jefferson generally prevailed and the present government embodying these ideas was established.