‘Why,’ I said, ‘can you not guess the explanation, for indeed it is not difficult? These Southerners had black slaves. Indeed, the war was largely caused by that.’ ‘How,’ said Lysis. ‘Why, among barbarians it is not natural that one man should serve another, for all are slaves by nature. And, in general all are slaves to one despot, as among the Persians. Now in America the northern barbarians were angry that the Southerners were served by Ethiopians, whom they declared to be in all respects the equals of the whites. And when they won the doubtful struggle, they wrote in their Constitution that that was so. For they believe they can change the nature of things by changing that Constitution of theirs. But, indeed, they have made much less difference than they think, and freed individuals rather than the race itself, and the chief part of the Ethiopians, and, as I believe, the happiest, are those serving in the fields and households of the South. For, if you do not pursue the life of reason as only the few can do, it is better to serve a man pursuing, even faintly, that life than to pass your days in the fever of petty trading. But these Northerners came from aristocratic countries where they had suffered the insolence of aristocrats, and did not understand rightly about personal dignity. For they are filled with pride against personal service, being full of self-assertion towards individuals and of slavishness towards public opinion. Whereas, rightly, a man should not think himself lowered by any useful service to a good man, supposing he should meet with one, but should feel it extreme degradation to hand over his soul to the keeping of the crowd. Or does it not seem so to you?’ ‘Why, yes, Socrates,’ answered Agathon; ‘I can see these Northerners were the most unsuitable people possible to have a voice in the ordering of the South.’ ‘However,’ I said, ‘it has happened now, and the Southerners were all rendered poor by the exhaustion of the struggle, so that sheer necessity has changed the character of southern life. But they still continue to show great understanding, for people who are not Greeks. They measure things by other standards than quantity, and they do not think meanly of leisure. But their glories they have left upon the field of battle.’ ‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘and though they were able to prevent the North from dictating to them how they should live, they have been unable to do the great work they were needed to do. For nothing else could check the Middle West when that grew strong.’ ‘I agree with you, Agathon,’ I said, ‘and now the standards of the manufacturers spread steadily through the whole country. That was the third disaster, and there still remains a fourth.’ ‘Tell us, then,’ said Lysis, ‘about the fourth disaster which, as it seems, this unfortunate Civil War has caused.’ ‘Why,’ I said, ‘did we not say that it had fixed the attention of everybody upon the central or federal government?’ ‘We did.’