There was no social conflict; all had the same interests, and if one man inherited wealth, and another had nothing but his labor to depend on, they never came in conflict, for the former never sought the aid of the government to benefit himself at the expense of his less fortunate neighbor. In the North, if a citizen inherited ten thousand dollars, he invested it in some special corporation—a bank, a manufacturing company, or something else—that had its origin in special legislation, and perhaps doubly increased his income, which, of course, was drawn from the laborer, the producer, the class that creates all wealth. In Virginia, on the contrary, if a citizen inherited ten thousand dollars, he invested it in lands, in the industrial capacities of negroes, in short, in labor; and though he may never have labored an hour with his own hands himself, he became of necessity a producer, with the same common, universal, and indivisible interests of all other producers and laborers, and therefore never sought the aid of government. Indeed, the government could not nor can not at this time legislate for the benefit—special benefit—of the planter of the South, or the farmer or producer at the North; and from the day it was created to this moment, there has never been an act of Congress or of the federal government that specifically benefited the South. Congress _might_, it is true, “protect” cotton or wheat, or other of the great staples which the producers of both sections furnish, but it would be a “protection” quite as useless to the parties interested as it would be harmless in its results to other classes and interests among us.