That the general question of property is at all affected by the obliteration of this interest, is an egregious error. The property, the possession of which is valid and inviolable, is the product of human skill, industry, labor, invention, or what not. Nor does it confer political dominance on its possessor. The slaveholders are the only class in the nation whose property interest does so; and reciprocally, the sole object of the maintenance of this interest is the maintenance of this dominant power. Whether it be or be not criminal to possess it, is not the point upon which the demand for the abrogation of this interest turns--at least, there is no legal precedent to so think of it--but it turns upon the fact that it is ruinous to a republican system. Not the whole force of republicanism can at once maintain itself and conserve and cherish _that_; and _if_ it, to a certain extent cherish it, it will do no more than continue the basis of the power of a class, who will use it in the only way it can be used, namely, in contesting whatever interests, principles, or practices are averse to it. Hence, for more than thirty years not a single widely beneficent measure of legislation has been allowed to pass and become operative by the representatives of this interest. So the South, the seat of this interest, has always been, in its own estimation, 'the South,' despite what we have said of a national Union; rendering it impossible that the republican patriot could _unite_ in one sentiment that which this particular interest _divided_ itself from. That humanity should dictate the freedom of the slave in the interests of morality, is but natural. With this we have nothing to do; but that the being of an 'aristocracy based on property' should be excluded from the bounds of a republic, is of an importance to it and mankind, not second to religion itself. THE MOLLY O'MOLLY PAPERS. VII. The Chinese thief, they say, greases himself and sticks knives in his queue, so that it is nest to impossible to catch him. Old Time is about as slippery a fellow as a Chinese thief. I don't know that he has a queue, and have fancied that when queues were worn, and Time was in the fashion, some old fogy, too slow to keep up with him, caught him by his queue. Time, who never yet was detained by mortal grasp, pressed on and left it behind. Since then he has cultivated only that _ungraspable_ forelock. Fleet of foot as he is, it is thought that Young America, with his telegraphs, will, in the long run--that is, in the race round the world--come out 'a leetle ahead' of him. Indeed, Young America talks of annihilating Time. But, though he may have 'one foot on land and one on sea,' he has no commission to 'swear that time shall be no more.'