The Roman oligarchs had all the polish reflected from general culture covering the most depraved minds; and this told upon their politics as well as upon their domestic economy. As early as the time of Jugurtha, nearly all the senators were venal; and subsequently, those who preserved individually some of the better Roman characteristics, became even more rare. Such an one, toward the end of the republic, was Sextus Roscius, whom history mentions for his good treatment of his bondmen. Whenever a special class of society becomes anywhere predominant, a special type of character is formed as the standard of honor, which, however, is generally quite different from the true standard of an honest man or an upright citizen. But, false criterions aside, the Slave States may, and undoubtedly do, possess many honorable planters and citizens, as Carroll of Carrollton or Aiken and Preston of South Carolina: but none of these men give tone or character to the manners or the laws; their influence is not permitted in Congress or the state legislatures, nor are their opinions reflected in the press or in the sham literature and science of their section. But the customs and manners which now prevail, the laws enacted, the utterances of statesmen, the condition of science and literature, and the statements of the current press, constitute the evidence from which the social condition of the nation is to be judged now, and the historic evidence from which it will be judged by future generations. The slaveholding oligarchy triumphed over Marius and Sertorius as it triumphed over the Gracchi. _And the Roman republic expired_ composed of slaveholders, capitalists, and beggars. The fury of the indignant and impoverished people carried Cæsar to power over the carcasses and the ruins of the oligarchy, which long before had reduced the liberty and the name of the Roman people to a sham and a mockery. Domestic slavery for several centuries undermined the Roman republic, and its corrosive action increased with the most brilliant periods of conquest, just as the human body, though gnawed internally by a chronic disease, may exhibit, for a longer or shorter period, all the appearances of health and vigor. Oligarchs, slaveholders, and capitalists destroyed a republic founded by intelligent and industrious agriculturists, yeomen, and freeholders. More than one point of analogy exists between the Roman and American republics. Independent and intelligent small farmers, with artisans, mechanics, etc., were the founders of American independence. And the free states have not only preserved but elevated to a higher social and political significance the original characteristics of her existence; and the reproaches hurled by the militant pro-slavery oligarchs against the free farmers and operatives in the fields and workshops of the north are sacrilegious to liberty and light. Even so the prince of darkness curses the god of day! XIII. ROMANS--POLITICAL SLAVES.