Such was the condition of the Roman world and its western provinces, Spain and Gaul, when the avalanche from the north burst upon it with its torrent of invaders. The oligarchic slaveholders, having destroyed the republic, transmitted to the Cæsars a society which had through their means become utterly degenerate and depraved. The emperors, in their turn, transmitted to the new era a world putrescent with domestic slavery. Often does a virus eat its way so deeply into a healthy organism, as to change its very character and the conditions of its existence. Then the morbid disorganization becomes an apparently normal condition, until finally life is altogether extinct. Such was the effect of chattelhood on the Roman world, and especially on Italy, which was the soul and centre of the system. Nor does it require any great apprehension to see how the tragic analogy holds in the case of the Southern States of the North American confederacy.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] The Cæsars proper end with Nero, and then begin the emperors of various families and even nationalities.
[15] See speech of Senator Mason of Virginia.
[16] So to-day no law creates or gives a definition of "sand-hillers," "clay-eaters," and other brutalized poor whites in the South, who are rapidly approaching slavery.
CHRISTIANITY: ITS CHURCHES AND CREEDS.
AUTHORITIES: