The  Abolitionist  did  not  recognise  that  slavery  in
America,  like  serfdom  in  Russia,  had  developed  into
culture  a  country  which  would,  without  it,  have
remained  a  wilderness ;  nor  did  the  slave  theorists
recognise  that  a  time  must  infallibly  come  when  both
systems  of  enforced  labour  must  yield  to  new  forms
of  industrial  development.  The  Abolitionists,  taking
their  impressions  from  the  early  English  and  Quaker
philanthropists,  thought  principally  of  the  personal
wrong  inflicted  on  the  negro ;  while  the  majority  of
Americans  declared,  with  equal  conviction,  that  the
black's  sufferings  were  not  of  so  much  account  that
white  men  should  be  made  to  suffer  much  more  for
them,  and  the  whole  country  be  possibly  overwhelmed
in  civil  war.  Even  at  this  early  period  of  the  dispute,
there  were,  however,  in  the  old  Whig  party,  a  few
men  who  thought  that  the  growing  strife  was  not
to  be  stopped  simply  by  crushing  the  Abolitionists.
But  while  they  would  gladly  have  seen  the  latter
abate  their  furious  zeal,  they  also  thought  that  slavery
might,  with  propriety,  be  at  least  checked  in  its
progress,  since  they  had  observed,  with  grave  mis-
giving, that  wherever  it  was  planted,  only  an
aristocracy  flourished,  while  the  poor  white  men


5o  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln.
became  utterly  degraded.  Such  were  the  views  of
Abraham  Lincoln — views  which,  in  after  years,  led,
during  the  sharp  and  bitter  need  of  the  war,  to
the  formation  of  the  theory  of  Emancipation  for
the  sake  of  the  Country,  as  opposed  to  mere  Abolition
for  the  sake  of  the  Negro,  which  had  had  its  turn
and  fulfilled  its  mission.
