oppressions of this party, short of a physical revolution and an appeal to arms. They were largely in the majority, but the right of suffrage being mainly confined to property-holders, laborers, mechanics, artisans, etc., were, as in England, disfranchised; while the agricultural classes, though greatly advanced, no doubt, beyond the same classes in the Old World, were yet extremely illiterate and ignorant, and therefore powerless. The policy of the federalists was absolutely the same as in England—that is, the government was a machine or instrument through which the few who produce nothing were to enjoy every thing, and the many, who produce every thing, were to enjoy nothing. In a new country, with cheap lands and virgin soils, it might be many centuries before the awful results now manifested in England could be worked out, but the process was the same—the same causes were in operation, and the same results would surely follow—differing only in degree. Nor, had the Union been confined to the Northern States, was there any reasonable prospect before the masses of overthrowing the oppression foisted on them, by a resort to revolution and physical force. They were the immense majority, it is true, but without leaders, without education or intelligence, or prestige of any kind, their doom was sealed, their subjection certain, their slavery inevitable. It would have been the old story over again—the revolt of the people against their oppressors in 1776 to be again subjected to other oppressions in 1796—a change from one master to another; though, doubtless, as all the efforts of the race have been in the direction of progress, a certain advance towards a better condition. But, fortunately for mankind and the cause of free institutions, a widely different state of things existed in Virginia and other States in the South. As fully considered in another place, the negro element was here stationary, and in numbers so considerable that rules and regulations were necessary in regard to it. It had to be provided for; its capacities, its wants, its necessities, in short, harmonized with the wants and well-being of the dominant race. The colonial legislatures, as the State legislatures of the present day, were constantly called on to enact laws and establish regulations for this subordinate social element, as well as for themselves, and therefore habits of thought grew up that gave them widely different notions of government from those of the people in the North.