But
when the young Republic began to take its place amongst the nations,
men found that the wealth and talents which led it forward belonged
as much to the busy cities of New England as to the plantations of
Virginia and the Carolinas; and with the growing sentiment in favour
of universal equality began the revolt against the dominion of a
caste. Those who had carved out their own fortunes by sheer hard work
and ability questioned the superiority of men whose positions were no
guarantee of personal capacity, and whose wealth was not of their own
making. Those who had borne the heat and burden of the day deemed
themselves the equals and more than equals of those who had loitered
in the shade; and, esteeming men for their own worth and not for that
of some forgotten ancestor, they had come to despise those who toiled
not neither did they spin. Tenaciously the Southerners clung to the
supremacy they had inherited from a bygone age. The contempt of the
Northerner was repaid in kind. In the political arena the struggle
was fierce and keen. Mutual hatred, fanned by unscrupulous agitators,
increased in bitterness; and, hindering reconciliation, rose the
fatal barrier of slavery.
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