For this material superiority of the free-labor States inevitably inured to the advantage of liberty. In vain did every new Free State, year after year, vote with the Slave Power; in vain did every great railroad and manufacturing corporation of the North obey the political behests of the lords of the plantations; in vain was the mercantile aristocracy of all the great cities the fast friend of the slave aristocracy; and vainly did almost the entire immigrant population fall politically into its control. All this was as nothing _against the irresistible natural tendency of free labor_. The Irishman who voted against the negro was breaking his chain with every blow of his pick. The Wall-street banker, the great railroad king, the cotton manufacturer, who railed against abolitionism like mad, were condemning the slave aristocracy every day they lived. There is a divine law by which the work of freemen shall root out the work of slaves; and no law enacted by the will of Northern doughfaces could repeal this statute of nature. These Northern friends of the aristocracy supposed themselves to be helping their ambitious allies by their political support. But the slaveholders knew how fallacious was this aid. They saw that the North was gaining a huge superiority to the South; that the people were slowly consolidating; that when the free-labour interest did finally concentrate, it would carry every Northern interest with it, and, when the pinch came, no Northern party or statesman could or would help them do their will. They carefully sifted all offers of aid from such quarters, and having used every Northern interest and institution and party till it was squeezed dry of all its black blood, they turned their backs haughtily on the white sections of the Union, plundered friend and foe alike, and flew into civil war, out of spite and rage at the census of 1860; in other words, _declared war against the providence of God as manifested in the progress of free society_. They have fought well; at first, perhaps, better than we; but when General Lee 'flanks' the industrial decrees of the Almighty, and Stuart 'cuts the communications' between free labor and imperial power, they will destroy this republic--and not till then. But was this great material gain of the people to be accompanied by a corresponding spiritual advancement? _Was man to become the chief object of reverence in this wonderfully expanding industrial empire?_ If not, all this progress was deceptive, and nobody could predict how soon our very superiority should be turned to the advantage of that aristocracy which had perverted so many things in the republic.