It is, that the owners of the soil and of the
capital seldom consider themselves _at home_ in the colony. A very
great portion of the soil itself is usually owned in the mother country;
a still greater is mortgaged for capital obtained there; and, in
general, those who are to derive an interest from the products look to
the parent country as the place for enjoyment of their wealth. The
population is therefore constantly fluctuating. Nobody comes but to
return. A constant succession of owners, agents, and factors takes
place. Whatsoever the soil, forced by the unmitigated toil of slavery,
can yield, is sent home to defray rents, and interest, and agencies, or
to give the means of living in a better society. In such a state, it is
evident that no spirit of permanent improvement is likely to spring up.
Profits will not be invested with a distant view of benefiting
posterity. Roads and canals will hardly be built; schools will not be
founded; colleges will not be endowed. There will be few fixtures in
society; no principles of utility or of elegance, planted now, with the
hope of being developed and expanded hereafter. Profit, immediate
profit, must be the principal active spring in the social system. There
may be many particular exceptions to these general remarks, but the
outline of the whole is such as is here drawn.
Another most important consequence of such a state of things is, that no
idea of independence of the parent country is likely to arise; unless,
indeed, it should spring up in a form that would threaten universal
desolation.
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