March 30, 1861; The New York Herald
The republican papers are continually representing that the slave owners of the South are all aristocrats, and comprise an odious oligarchy, while all the democracy of the country is to be found at the North. If the possession of wealth constitutes an aristocracy in the owners thereof we think that there is far more of it to be found in the Northern than in the Southern States. All the bankers and financiers, the rich merchants and ship owners, and more especially the mill owners and manufacturers, according to this rule, form a vastly more numerous body of aristocrats and oligarchs, and a more mischievous one, too, as far as the interest of the masses are concerned, than the Southern slaveholders. The truth is that there does exist a kind of pretentious aristocracy in the country, whose rank is based on wealth; but is scattered all over the country, in every quarter, and is peculiar to no particular section. It comprises, for the most part, persons who have come into the possession of large fortunes, but who have very little intellect–whose breeches pockets vastly outweigh their brains–but all this will be equitably settled in about the third generation. It is absurd to locate this class at the South, while the fact is notorious that there is hardly a more potent oligarchy existing anywhere than in the manufacturing districts of New England–a body which controls almost the souls and destinies of the operatives as completely as the cotton lords of Manchester.