The world will behold in due time the disruption of that vast organization of labor by which the ruling class in Great Britain have concentrated the energies of the empire, and directed the same for so many years to the extension of British power and dominion, which was but a generalized mode of aggrandizing themselves. That system has answered great purposes, has accomplished great results. But it has generated in its progress a mass of social and political evil which now clogs its working, and is gradually impairing its inmost springs of action. Civilization is expanding beyond the narrow basis of a class government. Humanity cries aloud in the name of her millions. Men are something more than machines. The object of human existence is not merely to gain, by incessant toil, the means of subsistence, that the ability to toil on may be maintained. The mass of mankind were never designed to be the drudges of a few, and to rest in that position, as the highest attainment for them. The progress of freedom is but the progress of individual development; its results are the results of individual activity, extended more and more to the integers of society. Men have found that power, in whatever depository lodged, has been used by rulers in forgetfulness of its true uses, in forgetfulness of the general good, in a blind persuasion that it was theirs by an inherent right, to be employed for their aggrandizement or pleasure. Thus the Priesthood first, as the agents of heaven, and holding intercourse with the celestial powers; then the monarch, as the personal representative of Deity; next the highest order of men in the State, ὁι αριστοι, as possessing the combined wisdom of the wisest; all these have held the supreme power in succession, in the progress of freedom, and all have perverted the functions of government. Instead of shepherds, guarding well the flock, they have been as hirelings, fleecing the flock. The assumption of sovereign power by the general body of the people, is the result of continued disappointments--of continued failures to find a depository where sovereignty might be safely deposited and righteously and wisely administered. It will not do for the rulers of nations nor for the masters of slaves to regard themselves as the holders of power for their own purposes merely--but as the holders of a trust which they are to discharge with fidelity, and which they are to give up, when their agency as the administrators of authority is no longer productive of good. V. _Of Slavery in Maryland._ It is known that Slavery once existed in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and the New England States. It has been abolished in those States, while it continues to exist in Maryland, and in the States south of the Potomac and the Ohio.